This is my poetry analysis of the poem “Advertisement” by Wisława Szymborska.

I chose this poem to analyze as I thought it was really intriguing to see how Szymborska used personification to narrate in the voice of a drug, instead of showing the perspective of the individual taking the drug. My initial reaction to the poem was that it was really fast-paced and persuasive, but towards the end, it had an unexpected shift in mood. As I read it over a few more times, it began to feel scarier and scarier as I could understand why drugs would be so addicting to people. I also really liked the way Szymborska wrote the poem as if it was an advertisement campaign and used phrases such as “What are you waiting for” which usually draws people’s attention.

This is a part of a paragraph that I think was able to show my analysis on why and how Szymborska used personification:

Throughout the entirety of the poem, Szymborska uses personification in order to narrate using the voice of the drug. By bringing inanimate objects to life, it is Szymborska’s way of illustrating the power that drugs hold and convincing the effectiveness of drugs to the reader in a more vivid way. The poem is set either before an individual takes a drug when they are considering taking a drug, or just a general representation of an addicted individual. Instead of narrating from the perspective of the individual, Szymborska narrates in the first person through the point of view of a prescription drug. In the first line, “I’m a tranquilizer”, she immediately lets the reader understand this. Instead of using the word drug, Szymborska uses a word with a stronger connotation that depicts how powerful it is; its ability to numb all pain, and even replace God’s role by “lighten up God’s absence”. By creating a persona that holds a lot of power and has the ability to control the person who consumes it, Szymborska points out that it isn’t always just the individual’s fault for being addicted to them – it may also be because of how the drug is made to be like. She shifts the blame from the individual to the drug, making the individual seem more innocent and forgivable for being addicted to the drugs.

I wanted to convey that the use of personification wasn’t just to accentuate the effectiveness of drugs, but it was also to show the readers another way to view being addicted to drugs – not blaming the individual but blaming the drug for being addicting.

Something I think I still need to work on is how I express my ideas and how I can be more precise with the vocabulary I use.