The process of addressing memories of private suffering in Sharon Olds' “The Victims” is implied through conflicting perspectives. In the poem, there is a shift in focus and tone during line 17. The poem approaches the issues of suffering from two distinct perspectives, the first coming from a little girl and the second from an adult woman. The narrative, imagery, and diction are different in the two contrasting parts of the poem, and the second half carefully qualifies the first, as if to illustrate the more mature and established attitudes of the narrator in her older years—a stipulation of easy imitation. early years, when the mother's opinions dominated and set the tone. The change here governed the structure of the poem; differences in age and attitude are underpinned by a completely different point of view and frame of reference. The change in tone of the stylistic elements used by Sharon Olds implicitly reflects the impact of suffering on the family sphere; The complex emotions that arise following divorce are conveyed through past and present perspectives, comparative images, and a significant shift in tone. The change in perspective of the story, from past to present, depicts the father from two different angles. The poem is told from the perspective of the daughter of a couple facing marital problems. The beginning of “The Victims” illustrates the memories that the woman evokes with nostalgia from her childhood. From lines 1 to 17 the narrator evokes her father, with the repetition of “you” (1, 3) who had acted terribly during his youth and who was suddenly expelled and divorced by the mother. The narrator describes her father who, for his daughter, lived in a luxurious and uncaring environment...... middle of paper ......Olds to present to the reader, through diction, the image of a person who is drowning. This image, after being taken, analyzed and dissected, reveals deeper connections to the narrator, his father and society as a whole. In conclusion, “The Victims” concerns real objectives and themes which enrich the whole text. When seeing the term victim, many people immediately think of a target of violence or abuse. In the poem “The Victims,” Olds describes the victims as victims of an experience rather than a physical scar. When she was a child, Sharon Olds' parents divorced. So who is the victim in “The Victims”? As the narrative, imagery, and diction evolve, from the first half to the second half of the poem, so does the classification of the victims. Throughout the poem, the mother, children and father are all victims, but also presented as the culprits..