Carolyn Forch? frequently uses images from everyday life to draw the reader into his poetry. After establishing a connection with the familiar, she often reveals a darker side of humanity, integrating the two seamlessly. The transition between the two mirrors real life, where horrors coincide with the peaceful reality that many can enjoy. Forch? uses this method to compare the lives of the rich and the poor as well as the powerful and the weak. In his poem “Return,” published in The Country Between Us (1981), Forch? discusses the surreal feeling of returning to America after spending several years in El Salvador. Forch? sets a similar tone in "The Colonel" as she recalls spending time with the upper class of El Salvador. Comparing the Salvadoran working class, whose reality is one of constant conflict and incessant violence, and those who control the country, Forch? » challenges the reader to consider what is ordinary. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The Carolyn Forch Years? El Salvador took place during a turbulent time for the nation. Much of the Salvadoran working class, which made up the largest percentage of the population, was tired of the poverty that was their reality. When El Salvador was colonized, the indigenous people were repressed and they were ready for change. However, the ruling class controlled the military. Anyone who favored reforming the nation to make it a better place was labeled a communist. With this justification, the government waged war against civilians who were already suffering in their daily lives. Forch? witnessed these horrors and made it his mission to inform the public of these previously unsolved atrocities. In “Return” Forch? sets the scene by describing things that were once normal to him. The description of “icy drinks and paper umbrellas” slowly falls apart as she recounts her experiences to a friend (17). Forch? is clearly still shaken by her experiences. Normal things that she wouldn't have thought twice about before scare her. After describing how her personal perspective changed, she begins to expand on her time in El Salvador.Forch? describes the violence in El Salvador as “the mixture of machetes and whiskey” where “the slip of the tongue costs hundreds of lives” (17). This depiction of the upper class contrasts directly with the usual context of Los Angeles, where Forch? observes the consumption of “frozen drinks” with their “paper umbrellas” (17). The difference between the two is in the conversation: the simple act of drinking after dinner can become a murder plot in El Salvador. “The men and women in the pits/are kept for a few days without food or water” are often part of “informal cocktails/conversations on which their release depends” (17). Forch? also comments on how this behavior encourages “men and women of good will [to] read/torture the reports with fascination” (17). This is just one example of the horrors happening around them that are becoming commonplace for Salvadorans. In the next stanza of Forch?, she attacks the American solution's approach to the problem. These “water pumps/ and cooperative farms are of little importance/ and take years/” (18). This passive attempt to fight poverty in El Salvador does not counter the violence created by those in power. These ordinary things don't help the situation Forch? details in his poems. He does nothing to counter“the razor, live wire, dry ice and concrete” used in the torture of repressed Salvadorans (18). Aid typically offered to poor countries would be of no use in El Salvador, where the revolution had already begun and could not be undone. Peaceful steps taken by workers to gain more rights for the lower class were already met with violence. In this country where “a union leader was torn to pieces and buried,” the actions of the United States were effectively worthless (18). In the third stanza Forch? returns to a place many would recognize: Safeway. Forched? uses the daily task of running errands to compensate for the lack of food, shelter and safety in El Salvador. She “goes crazy, for example, / in the Safeway, because of the many heads / of lettuce, papayas and sugar, pineapples / and coffee, especially coffee” (18). Forch? continues his critique of America and adds another comparison to rich Salvadorans sipping their whiskey. These Americans with "their constant scotch and their beautiful white hands" have "an absence of recognition" of how something they habitually do can negatively affect people in other places in a different situation (18). These are the same Americans who make insignificant efforts to help the poor of El Salvador. Forch? describes the wife of one of the rich and powerful American men she met in El Salvador as providing him with nothing but “drunken kindness” (19). Not only is she drunk on the "four martinis" she can safely drink while crossing the area, but she is also drunk because she has nothing to fear. The poor suffer and are massacred “while the white-gloved Marines [are] tasked with protecting her” (19). Are these Americans doing the forcing? I can't stand talking or being there. She is correct in assuming that many in the United States cannot understand the situations Salvadorans face on a daily basis. The last stanza of “Return” gives a very detailed analysis of his overall opinion on American and Salvadoran relations. Forch? reiterates the problems and violence by once again paralleling them with Western complacency. The Americans “are all erased by them and no longer look like honest men” (20). Forch? also writes that “the problem is not . . . life as it is in America, not that [our] hands, as [they] tell me, are tied to do anything. It is/that [we] were born on an island of greed/and grace where [we] have this feeling/of yourself as separate from others. It’s/not your right to feel helpless” (20). As she writes, Forch? highlights how selfish it is to presume we are powerless to help when these people truly have no control over their lives. The truth it reveals is that the majority of people are too preoccupied with themselves to help resolve or even understand the situation. Forched? blames this attitude on the privileged lives many get to live. In reality, unless everyone shares the same experiences, it is impossible to truly understand other people's situations because the notion of ordinary is different for each person. It is for this reason that the lives of others, so different from “our” ordinary lives, are treated in our minds with a sense of distorted reality. “Return” is a chronicle of Forch?s personal experience? facing a situation that many could not imagine. She uses her familiarity with both worlds to highlight the differences between the two. This in turn shows how what is perceived as normal in some societies becomes perverted and dangerous in a different situation...