In both the poems the mood changed towards the end, in “The Lie” it goes from a hurt mood to a false happy mood when she is lying about how she feels when the person leaves her. The poem “never offer… ” has a positive mood at the end. When looking at tone, we can see that “never offer your heart to someone who eats hearts” starts off with a warning tone, wanting to warn the reader not to offer their heart to someone who will hurt them, the tone is also quite gruesome.
At the end of this poem in the last stanza, the tone changes to a happy hopeful tone where Alice Walker writes about the “holy women “who “await you on the shore”. The entire poem has a slight comical undertone; it is almost funny to think that a man could eat your heart. “The Lie” starts off with a bitter, threatening tone, but it changes to a false tone when Maya Angelou writes “ill help you pack” we can tell by the tone of her voice that she doesn’t really mean this.
Both Walker’s and Angelou’s poems contain an effective use of structure.
“The Lie” is written in three four lined verses that are rhymed. One line, after the 3rd stanza asks the rhetorical question “are you leaving? ” This shows where the tone of the poem changes. In the last stanza the structure completely changes, the stanza has an AABB rhyme structure. In contrast Alice Walker’s poem is written in the style of a recipe, it has short lines and commands, it is written as though you are speaking directly to Walker.
The entire poem is unrhymed.
The word “delicious” is written in italics like in a recipe, the italics enhance the way “delicious” is used in a sinister way. Tension builds up all the way through the poem but break to a calm tone at the end. There is comparison to be found when analysing the language of the poems. Both poems use negative verbs such as “hold”, “threaten”,”sear”,”tearing” the use of these verbs shows how much she would like to hurt him. Walker’s poem also uses negative verbs to show how much the man doesn’t care that he is hurting walker’s heart.
Unlike in “The Lie”, “never offer your heart.. ” contains sibilance, when walker writes “send it shuttling from side to side” the repetition of s makes the words sound sinister and evil and like you can hear the mans saliva in his mouth. Imperatives are used in this poem also, when walker orders the reader that they “must do” as she says. This tells me that she is experienced in having her heart “eaten”, and is wise enough to give advice on how not to get hurt.
In this stanza the writer talks about “freezing” your heart, when you freeze your heart, no one can get to it. Words associated with cooking and recipes are used in this poem such as “rare”, “delicious” and “stewed”. This makes the reader want to follow the instructions correctly in order to achieve the intended results, like in a recipe. When looking at imagery, we see that in “The Lie” the use of the metaphors “flood your path” and “sear bottomless chasms in your road” show exactly how much damage and pain she could cause him.
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