Morning in the Burned House
21 pages • 42-minute read
Margaret AtwoodMorning in the Burned House
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Themes
The Complexities of Memory
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Margaret Atwood’s “Morning in the Burned House” highlights the illusory quality of memory that comes after loss. Further, it shows how difficult mourning can be, posing the question of how long someone should hold onto the past and how to move on. As the last poem in its self-titled collection, “Morning in the Burned House” explores the complexities of memory.
The poem begins with the speaker “eating breakfast” (Line 1) in “the burned house” (Line 1) before quickly noting that “there is no house, there is no breakfast” (Line 2). When the speaker confesses, “[Y]et here I am” (Line 3), they acknowledge the space of their experience as liminal. It is a space of dream and memory—a mental threshold that one can escape to when they feel nostalgic. Due to the homonymic meaning that the title provides, this equates to a time of mourning for the speaker. Grief explains the vividness of the memory, as the speaker can hear how the “spoon […] scrapes against the bowl” (Lines 4-5). In reality, both items were “melted” (Lines 4-5) by the fire that burned the house down. The solidity with which the items in the house are described, with “every detail clear” (Line 13), deliberately contrasts with the fact that the house no longer exists. In this sense, memory can bring back to life people and things that have long passed.
The truth encroaches much like the “bank of cloud [that] rises up silently” (Line 17) to douse the light of the otherwise “bright” (Line 15) morning. While the speaker is “finding [them]self back here” (Line 24) and feels present in the memory, “everything in this house has long been over” (Line 25). Eventually, the speaker must decide whether the imagining is a “trap or blessing” (Line 23). As much as they want to remain there with “their bare child’s feet” (Line 31), they must see how those feet are placed on “the scorched floorboards” (Line 31). Loss and change are inevitable, affecting the “the body [they] had then” (Line 28) and “including the body [they] have now” (Line 29). No one is protected from living, loving, or mourning, as these are processes that go on until one’s own death.
The speaker chooses to let the memory of their idyllic childhood go up in flames like the burned house. This isn’t painted in a negative light, however. Eradication is not the point of this reading; rather, the speaker tries to show that they will be reborn by saying goodbye to the “trap” (Line 23) of their static vision. In other words, the speaker chooses gratitude for all that has passed, even the mourning that comes with saying goodbye. In this way, they become “radiant flesh. Incandescent” (Line 36), suggesting that the static memory has now become something transcendent.
The Tensions Between Life and Death
Traditionally within a gothic tale, the main character must contend with something fearful or horrific, often of a supernatural nature, in a setting like an abandoned castle, a crumbling estate, or a haunted house. “Morning in the Burned House” draws upon Gothic tropes to create a sense of haunting within the speaker’s memories, illuminating the tensions between life and death.
A key component of the Gothic is ambivalence or a sense that not all is what it seems, something evident in the speaker’s lack of certainty about where they are. At first, they place themselves “eating breakfast” (Line 1) in “the burned house” (Line 1). However, this is quickly replaced by the fact that “there is no house, there is no breakfast” (Line 2). The speaker still feels a sense of immediacy anyway, remarking, “[Y]et here I am” (Line 3). The speaker also sorrowfully wonders, “Where they have gone to, brother and sister / mother and father?” (Lines 7-8). The family has abandoned the house while the child remains, frozen in the act of eating breakfast. In this way, the speaker’s memory creates a scene marked by tensions between absence and presence, suggesting that while, in the past, the absence of siblings and parents was something temporary, like the suggested trip to the lakeshore, they no longer exist in the present, implying a more permanent loss.
One item of particular significance is the “rippled mirror” (14), with “rippled” suggesting that it was either bent by the fire consuming it or that it offers a different view of the reality of the child’s experience. The child is dualistic as well, seemingly living but inevitably dying, too. The child goes about their daily rituals and observations, but eventually, they recognize themselves as another “melted” (Lines 4-5) part of the house. Their “bare […] feet [rest] on the scorched floorboards” (Line 31). The clothes they are dressed in—“the thin green shorts / and grubby yellow T-shirt” (Lines 33-34)—are “burning” (Line 33). By the end of the tale, the child knows that their existence has “long been over” (Line 25). The speaker’s past self is also part of the inescapable fire and becomes “cindery, non-existent” (Line 36). In recognizing that their past, younger self is irretrievably gone, the speaker experiences a sort of death of their own.
In these ways, “Morning in the Burned House” plays with the idea of mourning and death on multiple levels: the deaths of loved ones and the death of one’s prior self with the passing of time. The speaker’s memory thus blurs the lines between life and death, temporarily resurrecting a bygone place and time while inevitably failing to reverse the loss entirely.
The Experience of Abandonment
Losing a loved one can be an isolating experience at any age, even if a person believes that the relation or friend now resides in some better place. Losing a parental figure can add to feelings of abandonment, as some children are unsure of how to define their familial role after that loss. These are prevalent concerns in “Morning in the Burned House,” with the speaker wrestling with the experience of abandonment.
Scenes of domesticity begin the poem as the child narrator places themselves “eating breakfast” (Line 1) at “the morning table” (Line 30). Breakfast meals are sometimes among a child’s first memories, as they are tied to a caregiver providing daily sustenance. Here, the child eats with a “spoon” (Line 4) and a “bowl” (Line 5). First meals are often cereal and oatmeal since they are easy for small children to digest. Although the speaker does not reveal their age in the memory, these images add to the idea of their vulnerability and position as someone small who is cared for.
However, these pleasant connotations rapidly shift as the child realizes that their family has disappeared, asking, “Where have they gone to, brother and sister / mother and father?” (Lines 7-8). Their absence is odd, as their “clothes are still on the hangers / their dishes piled beside the sink” (Lines 9-10), suggesting that perhaps a disaster has struck not just the house but the family that resides in it as well.
The child becomes wary and metaphorically addresses coming confrontations by noting the “bank of cloud / ris[ing] up silently like dark bread” (Lines 17-18). Here, the domestic idea of sustenance (“bread”) is made ominous rather than fortifying. The items in the house, formerly “clear” (Line 13) in “every detail” (Line 13), become less homey as disaster creeps in. The speaker notes that they “can see the flaws in the glass” (Line 20) and feel their “bare child’s feet [rest] on the scorched floorboards” (Line 31). They become abandoned by the house, too, as they realize that “everything / in this house has long been over” (Lines 24-25).
The speaker’s epiphany is that they have also passed from a time when they were a child in the house, secure under parental protection. They have aged and will eventually become one who is not there. This acceptance gives the speaker the ability to deconstruct their childhood memory, allowing the adult self to set fire to the “trap” (Line 23) of idealization. This functions as a metaphor for leaving familial expectations behind and embracing maturity.
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