Summary Of Leningrad Cemetery Winter Of 1941

In Sharon Olds’ “Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941”, Olds uses imaginative similes in her narrative poem about the Siege of Leningrad by the Germans in Russia on 1941. Olds makes connections between the graphic effects of the siege to nature infused imagery. The poem’s dark and somber tone are elaborated on by the similes made by Olds. The similes in Olds poem are meant to symbolize a contrast between life and death. The similes exhibit the meaning that life with suffering is better than death. Olds also uses vivid descriptions in order to inject a realistic approach into the poem. Olds beginning of similes start in the seventh line of the poem and is used to show the similarities between the bodies of gravediggers’ preparation to be buried and a tree’s preparation for life. The speaker says, “ They lay on the soil, some of them wrapped in dark cloth bound with rope like the tree’s ball of roots when it waits to be planted”(Olds Lines 5-8). After the gravediggers’ fight against starvation they are taken on a “child’s sled” to a cemetery (Olds Line 4). The “child’s sled” as being a

The speaker dictates, “but most lay like corpses, their coverings coming undone, naked calves hard as corded wood spilling from under a cloak” (Olds Lines 12-15). The beginning of the simile “but most lay like corpses” brings back the idea that all the events happened and that the poem is not just meant to be symbolic. Also it reiterates that death is upon the reader and that the siege caused the tragedies that occurred. The second part of the simile “naked calves hard as corded wood spilling from under a cloak” again is a simile about appearance of the dead. The claves of the dead bodies have gone stiff and no longer are filled with life or the willingness to move. The calves have turned into corded wood which is wood cut into a specific amount. The pillage of wood resembles that of the many corpses found during the