FREE ESSAY ON MONROE-JUST A SLUT?

MONROE-JUST A SLUT?

Hollywood created the image of Marilyn Monroe as a stereotypical sex bomb and dumb blonde,
which captivated the eyes and hearts of many men. Sharon Olds breaks down Monroe's label
and identifies Marilyn Monroe with qualities that everyday people actually have. These
qualities are shown through Olds's use of certain words throughout the poem, which are
trying to identify Marilyn Monroe as a normal person. This description of Monroe is in a
way that no one could ever imagine. It goes against the Hollywood glamour stereotype with
the way Olds describes the situation, "The ambulance men touched her cold body, lifted
it, heavy as iron, onto the stretcher and carried her, as if it were she, down the steps"
(Olds 418). The choice of words is very significant to the rest of the poem because it
penetrates past the stereotype of beauty and charm normally associated with Marilyn
Monroe, which leaves you vulnerable to a new look Sharon Olds wants to introduce. The
description of Monroe's body being cold is very different to what a beautiful poster girl
should be. Moreover, Olds's second description of Monroe's body being as heavy as iron
continues the author's approach of trying to connect Monroe as being "human" not just the
Hollywood robot of beauty that has no feeling or emotion. The idea of Marilyn Monroe dead
in a body bag, arms tied to her sides and mouth and eyes forced shut does not seem real
because that sounds ugly and horrible, which cannot occur, because Monroe is a symbol of
beauty. However Olds makes this point of Marilyn's death sound like an everyday death,
through the description of the ambulance men use of the body bag. At -4073- 2 this point
Olds connects the first part of her poem with the second part, by making her strongest
point. The author does this by relating with the men who could not believe Monroe was
dead by saying, "the men carried her, as if it were she, down the steps" (Olds 418). This
statement shows that she can connect with the men, by saying that the woman on the
stretcher cannot be Marilyn Monroe because that woman is not beautiful, rather is very
cold and heavy. But if the real Marilyn Monroe were to die, she would be glamorous and
beautiful like she normally was. The everyday qualities that people have were surely not
seen by the men that looked at Marilyn Monroe because whenever they saw her, they
fantasized or had dreams about her. Now she was dead. These men were never the same. They
went out afterwards, as they always did, for a drink or two, but they could not meet each
other's eyes (Olds 418). This reveals the men all thought of her as a "goddess" because
of their individual responses to the situation. Their responses were all individually
different but based on an infatuation, that they could not meet each other's eyes because
they were ignoring their masculine depth of feelings (Bly 338). One man had nightmares,
strange pains, impotence, depression, which shows that even though he did not know
Monroe, she had an effect on his life (Olds 418). The second man looked at death
differently-as a place where she would be waiting, which means instead of living his life
to go to heaven, he was going to live so he could see Marilyn when he dies. These two men
relate to Marilyn Monroe as being more than human. These two descriptions bring out the
sexy Hollywood creation of Marilyn Monroe. However with the last man's account Olds's
leaves us with a lasting impression of the way she wants us to remember Marilyn Monroe.
Sharon Olds uses a technique that slows the reader down as the poem ends, which makes the
reader identify -4073- 3 with Monroe taking her last breaths. So the author slows you
down and reveals what she wanted to, that Marilyn Monroe was just an ordinary woman
breathing (Olds 419).