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What is the main symbol in "Forms of Innocence" by Lorna Crozier, and what does it suggest?
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The main symbol in Lorna Crozier's poem "Forms of Innocence" is the black swan, representing the girl's nonconformity and liberation from societal expectations. Unlike the traditional white swan, the black swan signifies her independence and desire to control her fate, particularly through her sexuality. The swan symbolizes her repressed self breaking free, suggesting empowerment and the conscious choice to embrace her identity without societal constraints, rather than losing innocence or virginity.
The chief symbol in Crozier’s poem is blatantly the swan. The girl’s “innocence” is a black swan, not the traditional white, because she’s not the traditional lady she was raised and expected to be (think Rose in Titanic, or Bliss in Whip it). She is a girl brought up in a particular society, “a place she's never been, just seen/ in the room where no one/ ever touched anything” (25-27). This society was one of self-restraint as well as sexual denial; a patriarchal society where females are trophies, and expected to behave in a certain way. However, the girl’s personality is not in harmony with the beliefs and expectations of the society she comes from. She is not one the traditional “white swans” that thinks as her surroundings would like her to, but “one black swan swimming endless circles among the white” (30-31). She is an independent mind that dreams...
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to control her own fate and begins by doing so through her sexuality. She acknowledges her power through the use of the word “endless” which places her above the common sea of the conformist swans.
She is not “losing her virginity” but willingly partaking in the sexual act and finally giving her less-than-traditional being freedom to fly into the world without allowing the imprisoning norms of conventional society to cloud her mind and make her believe she is “losing” something or being “tainted.” She even identifies the experience as the day “her innocence took flight” rather than referring to it as the day her innocence or virginity was “lost.” The girl does not lose anything, but rather chooses to take her existence in a different direction. The image of it taking flight is an empowering one where she made the conscious choice to let go of her innocence for her own gain.
Metaphorically the black swan is the girl’s repressed self, breaking free. It fills her with joy and awe as she witnesses and experiences this liberating act. Her groan isn’t just sexual pleasure, whereas the boys’ is, hence he does not understand the experience she’s having beyond the mere physical. The girl is not losing anything or being robbed, as a girl’s first sexual experience is usually seen, but willingly allowing, and her groan demonstrates the liberating pleasure in actually enjoying the pleasurable feeling of sex. There is no taking, no violence, and no conquering from the male side. She conquers society by choosing to have sex and enjoying it. He’s just there and not playing a highly active role in her experience.
While the blood and phallic nature of the swan’s neck can represent the actual act of sexual intercourse itself, and there are definitely descriptions of the literal act, the black swan goes beyond to suggest liberation from the norms of society and the restraints placed on female sexuality.