Antigone

Laurance of arabia

Eng 1280

October 13/06

A Hypothetical Fantasy

"The Cinnamon Peeler" is a passionate portrayal of lust in which the transfer of scent becomes a public statement of union and ownership. There is clear evidence of a male dominated society where a woman is defined by her man whether it is a father or a husband. The cinnamon peelers wife, lime burner daughter, and grass cutter wife are great examples of this ownership. Every woman in this poem has been directly referred to through the men in their lives. The male dominant theme is seen in every aspect of the poem, from the leaving of bark dust on pillows to the floating fingers in the market.

When one first reads Ondaatje's "The Cinnamon Peeler," it is clear that the poem is about sex, specifically, the speaker's sexual desire for his wife. The cinnamon peeler and his wife are therefore marked physically by the scent of his occupation. This cinnamon scent takes on very sexual overtones as the poem progresses and shape the way the poem is interpreted. The cinnamon peeler in some cases throughout the poem uses the cinnamon smell as a metaphor for his sexual desire. The smells constant use can be interpreted more closely to his passion for her, his lust for her.

Ondaatje uses the mark of the cinnamon peelers profession to create intense imagery. The strong use of the cinnamon smell to display the women's sexuality allows Ondaatje to provoke intense images of lust and sexuality. The poem allows the reader to imagine all the ideas because Ondaatje describes the concepts well, trough metaphor. The stories and situations are very simple, easy to quickly imagine and the emotion are very basic. The imagery is enforced by the way the poem applies to the senses. The poem talks about touch and smell which aids the imagination visualize the poem.

The cinnamon peeler displays his ownership of his wife in the poem on many occasions, especially in the second stanza of the poem. "Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you" (5-8). This line itself displays the possessiveness of the cinnamon peeler. The aroma of his profession follows her everywhere even to the market, the aroma is the cinnamon peelers strongest form of ownership. The cinnamon smell almost acts as a leash or a collar, really creating a sense of animal like ownership. "The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon." (8-11) No matter if she bathes under a rain gutter she won't get ride of his smell, this is the first time place in the poem when we get the strong unmistakable sense of possessiveness.

The poem seems to be a sort of game or hypothetical situation. Ondaatje starts the poem off by saying "If I were a cinnamon peeler" (1), this changes the mood of the play with one word, "if". The significant of the word hold so much weight because it creates a hypothetical situation, thusly causing the entire essay to be a metaphor of his ownership over his wife. So it is not a nice story about a cinnamon peeler and his wife, but a vulgar representation which follows a nineteenth century illustration of women secondary to men and as sexual objects.

The ending to the poem is a declaration of subordinates by the wife; she strengthens and amplifies the concept of male dominance in the poem by agreeing with her husband that she is his. "You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife." (42-46)The cinnamon peelers wife doesn't claim her individualism, but again plays into the husband's hypothetical fantasy.

Ondaatje also defines women through the eyes of men by describing them