Welcome To Society Poem Analysis

How would you like it if you had to fit in? The poet Erin Hanson, who goes by E.H., wrote the poem “Welcome to Society”. The poem is summarized by the third and fourth lines, which state, “And please feel free to be yourself/ As long as it’s in the right way.” Hanson expresses the theme of social acceptance through his/her use of conflict, word choice, and idioms throughout the poem.

It can be argued that conflict is an important part of a poem. I personally think it is a very important part. Because, this entire poem is about how society is against people. So this whole poem is about conflict. There are many different types of conflict, but the one used in this poem is Self vs. Society. Like, for example, one of the lines in the poem says,

Which makes me think the person in the situation is feeling really down because people or society is making them feel like they are useless, stupid, unavailing, etc. The second example helps me understand that people are getting bullied or make fun of for even the smallest things. Like for loving your body, and hating your body. It is like there is no way to possibly please society anymore. When I lived in Mississippi, I had this friend that was hated on because she was too much of a ¨Goodie Goodie¨ and so she changed. She started using the curse words. She used to wear sweaters and jeans, now she wears shorts and t-shirts. This kind of reminds me of the poem just because now she is still hated for it and she just doesn't know what to do and it feels like it’s never ending. So, like in the poem, it says no matter what you do, you won’t please everyone, in her situation she can't please anyone

A few examples of which that are included in this poem are simile, idioms, hyperbole, and even more. Why are these things important you might ask? Well these small little things help being a lot of meaning to whatever you are writing, which in this example, a poem. Irony- The whole poem. The first one that stands out to me is irony, used in the whole poem. For the whole poem every other line has one statement then another line that completely contradicts the first statement. Like the lines, “You can fall in love with anyone/ As long as it is who we chose.” The second one I noticed was an idiom in the line, “We will tear you down.” The society will not actually tear you down, they will just make you feel worthless, and like you are at the absolute bottom of the school. The last one I saw was personification in the line, “ “We’ll let you have your views, but please shape them to our views” You can’t actually shape views, considering they aren’t an object or person, so you can only change them to what they want them to be. Earlier this year, everyone in the school was saying my perspective on life was wrong, so people wanted me to change them and I decided not to because the way I looked at life was “I would rather die tomorrow and have a life with living, than die when i'm 100, and have a life worth dying.” People didn’t like it because I was a daredevil and