The main idea in the poem “At Seventeen” by
Janis Ian is, the pretty girls get all the love while the less pretty girls
have to make up their own. In the poem
it says “I learned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens”
(Ian 1st stanza). It also
states “Desperately remained at home inventing lovers on the phone” (Ian 2nd
stanza). Because it says love was meant for beauty
queens we know that the less beautiful girls don’t get love. Also because it says desperately means that
the less pretty girls feel bad about themselves and are upset that they don’t
get any love. It also says “remained at
home” which tells us that the pretty girls are out somewhere with their lovers
while the less pretty girls are at home.
The last thing that it says is “inventing lovers on the phone”. That tells us that they want lovers badly and
are very upset.
The most effective literary
device used to give us this message is the diction used. The author used words like “Ravaged”, “ugly”,
“beautiful” and “desperately”. These
words really emphasize the sentences meaning.
The use of the word desperately was great. The author could have used any other word but
they chose desperate. That tells us that
the person is probably depressed or upset or frantic with what they are
doing. The use of ravaged is also
good. The author could have said mad or
upset or depressed but they chose ravaged which tells us that the person is so
mad they are breaking things. The word
beautiful tells us that the person they are talking about is beautiful. Not just good looking or pretty but
beautiful. The last word is ugly. The author uses this to describe the
narrator. When the narrator calls them
self ugly that tells us that they are upset with them self and are probably
jealous of the beautiful girls. The use
of diction was great in this story and I think it helped us find the message in
this poem.
