Marriage isn’t exactly what it seems to be in the poem entitled Conjoined by Judith Minty. As she peels back the layers on a seemingly happy marriage we learn the neither person is happy with their life. Feeling that they have just become the mold of what the other wants. She uses such literary devises as diction, similes, and metaphors to express the unhappy couples marriage.
The couple feels like their relationship is like two onions that have grown together. Growing together, yet apart from each other, with one half being nice and round, and one side being flattened and deformed by the other being constantly pressed against each other. The often disagree and do not get along, but can’t separate due to their marital situation. And through the life of their marriage they have tried transforming one another into what they believe they want. But the only affect seems to be a negative one in the fact that their “onion” becomes more distorted. The two separate onions under the skin grew against each other instead of with each other causing their trapped discontent.
The couple uses specific diction that points out their feelings about the relationship. Using such negative words as “monster, heavy, deformed, and freaks.” The use of these words in a negative connotation towards their marital status is a clear indicator of the feelings that are felt towards one another. Like the fact that them being together ands weight to their stress level. Calling their relationship deformed and relating it to freaks is another clear mental picture on how they mentally visualize their relationship. They definitely want to find a way out of the relationship that they both feel stuck in.
Judith Minty also uses similes to better visually explain the couples situation. Calling them a two headed calf fighting for milk. Which puts into perspective mentally of what the couple might be going for. Each fighting against the other on every decision, every move. Wanting more, wanting to be apart, but separating would mean death. Death of on or the other, death of the relationship.
In the end, Judith Minty might agree that the two in the couple would do better apart and on their own. But that would more than definitely ruin the whole point of a marriage. Marriage requires sacrifice for the other. But it seems that is not the case in Conjoined.
