At Seventeen

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 1^st stanza).  It also states “Desperately remained at home inventing lovers on the phone” (Ian 2^nd 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.