Poetry for Students

56 Poetry for Students

in detail, which areas of the woman’s body would

smell of cinnamon dust. In addition to referencing

the woman’s anatomy, the speaker also notes how

the cinnamon smell would mark the woman as his

wife even when she left the house. To further em-

phasize the power of this scent, the speaker gives

an extended example of blind people stumbling

from the potency of the odor. The speaker uses two

images of water to indicate that the woman could

not wash away the scent.

Whether the woman gets slightly wet from the

light stream of water that falls from a rain gutter

or thoroughly drenched from the torrential down-

pour of a monsoon, the scent of the man’s profes-

sion, which also serves as a symbol of his love and

desire, will stick to the woman. A symbol is a phys-

ical object, action, or gesture that also represents

an abstract concept, without losing its original iden-

tity. Symbols appear in literature in one of two

ways. They can be local symbols, meaning that

their symbolism is only relevant within a specific

literary work. They can also be universal symbols,

meaning that their symbolism is based on tradi-

tional associations that are widely recognized, re-

gardless of context. The poem relies on the former

type. While the speaker starts out discussing the

potent scent of cinnamon, it becomes clear through

his erotic descriptions that within the context of the

poem, cinnamon is a symbol for sexual desire.

Stanza 3

In the third stanza, the poem gets even more

erotic. Whereas the second stanza talked about the

woman’s “breasts and shoulders,” now the speaker

is moving lower on the woman’s body, indicating

more body parts that his cinnamon scent would in-

habit. The speaker mentions the woman’s thigh. A

woman’s upper thigh has inherent erotic overtones.

The use of the words “smooth pasture” increases

the eroticism of the speaker’s statement, because it

highlights the smooth texture of the woman’s skin.

Smooth skin is another anatomical aspect that is

used to indicate eroticism. In the third line, the

speaker gives one of the most graphic descriptions

in the poem: “neighbour to your hair.” Although

hair could normally mean the hair on a person’s

head, the fact that the speaker is talking about hair

near the woman’s upper thigh identifies it as the

woman’s pubic hair.

This reference is blatantly sexual, but the

speaker only lingers here for a moment, before trav-

eling on to the next body part, the woman’s back.

While not as blatantly sexual as a woman’s pubic

hair, a woman’s back is still inherently sensuous,

as is his last anatomical description of the woman’s

ankle. Although America’s emphasis on sexual

freedom has taken away the power and mystery of

a woman’s ankle, in some cultures, where women

are expected to wear more clothes, the sight of even

an ankle can be a very sensuous experience. The

speaker sums up all of his descriptions in the last

two lines of the stanza: “You will be known among

strangers / as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.” In other

words, the cinnamon peeler’s scent, the symbol of

his sexual desire and the marital connection that he

shares with this woman, has marked this woman so

much that even strangers will recognize the woman

as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.

Stanza 4

At this point, the poem switches gears. Up un-

til now, it has functioned on a hypothetical level, as

this married couple engages in a game of role-

playing. Now it switches to a description of the cou-

ple’s actual past. As he notes in the first line of the

poem, the speaker is not a cinnamon peeler. The

speaker’s love for his wife, however, is as strong as

the love that this hypothetical cinnamon peeler has

for his wife. In fact, the poet uses the hypothetical

example of the cinnamon peeler for a reason. He

The Cinnamon Peeler

Media

Adaptations

• Ondaatje’s novel Anil’s Ghostwas adapted as
  an unabridged audiocassette and audio CD in
  2000, both available from Bantam Books and
  both with Alan Cumming as reader.


• Ondaatje’s novel The English Patientwas adapted
  as a feature film in 1996 by Miramax Films.
  Written and directed by Anthony Minghella, the
  film starred Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche,
  Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Colin
  Firth. It is available on both DVD and VHS from
  Miramax Home Entertainment.


• The English Patientwas also adapted as an
  abridged audiocassette in 1993 by Random
  House. This audiobook is read by Michael York.

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