Comparison Of Larissa Lai And Rita Wong's Sybil Unrest

In the poem on page 7 of Larissa Lai and Rita Wong’s book Sybil Unrest, the authors employ enallages, allusions, malapropisms and rhymes into their work, thereby highlighting how global capitalism drives the manipulation and economic exploitation of the working public and concomitantly promotes practices that exacerbate environmental destruction.
The poem’s opening line starkly identifies the economic realm that the authors intend to dissect. When they describe how a woman’s “futures [are] gambled on the casino market” (1), the use of the word future in its plural form rather than the possessive serves as an enallage – implying that, although her life holds many possibilities, the hegemony of corporations and economic elites over the working-class

For instance, the authors consider the neo-conservative marketist belief in a system of free and unregulated enterprise that is intrinsic to global capitalism to be “sadomarketism” (11) – a malapropism that suggests the system possesses a sadistic quality that derives benefits and gratification from the suffering of others. As evidenced by earlier parts of the poem, such callousness is a feature of capitalist institutions in that their success is largely predicated on practices of worker exploitation – and while the majority continues to bear the negative financial and mental burdens of such systems, the economic elites in the minority prosper greatly from the dominant, unfettered capitalist model. As such, the authors’ use of this malapropism to conclude the poem elicits an overt sense of finality that emphasizes the adverse implications of the capitalist

A close reading of the phrase “bulls and purses” (7) can be interpreted in two slightly different ways that share a common thread of exploitation. For one, capitalism fixates on bull markets and cash-filled purses as the measures of success – despite the fact that history clearly shows stock exchanges are not an accurate representation of the true value of any corporate enterprise and valuations are easily tampered with by numerous market manipulations. As discussed earlier in the poem, it’s a “casino market” (1) – and the house (the investment and corporate elites who determine the value of stocks) always wins. On the other hand, “bears” (6) and “bulls” (7) are also symbolic of how the impacts of capitalism include dimensions of suffering that expand beyond humankind. The absence of corporate accountability as well as social and ethical standards within this economic framework enables the continuation of practices that involve animal cruelty for the sake of making money. On a broader scale, this understanding can also be applied to the much larger themes of climate change and environmental destruction. Under the capitalist model, the private sector is intensely focused on production, generating and maintaining wealth – but its use of unsustainable and unethical practices is destroying the planet, and will continue to do so under the current system.