Conjoined

 Sometimes we feel trapped in the relationship we have with other people. In Judith Minty's poem “conjoined” the relationship of a husband and wife are convey and how the feel trapped with a “skin” and what ever the fact that is holding them back whether it is money, love, or any other feeling. The question of how people feel trapped and there is no real way to get out sometimes from the uses of diction as well as other literary devices.

Diction can be used to convey the feeling of the people in the story or poem. For example, Minty uses the words “accident” “Fighting” “Freaks” “Doomed” to express to feeling the couple has. They feel trapped and like a monster under this “skin” or common experiences they share. They can not break away from each other because of all the things that developed over the time they were together, so the love can be go but there is so much other factors that influence their relationship. They can not separate no matter how much they want to. So they feel like “Freaks” trapped in this “Doomed” relationship.

Minty conveys the monstrosity of the relationship through figurative language. For example, the simile “An accident, like the two-headed calf rooted / In one body, fighting to suck at its mother's treats.” expresses how they hard forced to live together but they constantly fight for the lead. The marriage it self is like a tag of war between both parties for what the ideals of themselves are. In addition the simile “like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins / Joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed / To live, even make love, together for sixty years.” backs up everything the author Minty wanted to convey with the a relationship being stuck together or “Doomed” with each other until they die because of the situation they are in.

diction used in the third stanza to express the exact feelings the couple is having in their home is extremely powerful following the first and seconds stanzas set up for the actual setting with the couple in the house. For example, the words “bind” “heavy” “sever” “kill” “slice” “escape”. Irony is expressed through this diction because of how when you think of a marriage you automatically picture a happy couple. This relationship is the complete opposite, they want out of the relationship so much but they can not get out. The words in the last stanza make it seem as if the people want to kill the relationship. To slice each other apart. But they can not because of heavy binding that holds them together under “one transparent skin”

through out Judith Minty's poem “conjoined” through the uses of diction as well as other literary devices to expresses the trouble in the couple's relationship and how they can not leave one another. It begs the question of how people feel trapped and there is no real way to get out.