ing about her. It frustrates her even more that he doesnt and wont tell her that he has these feelings. Atwood wants to be able to relate her feelings to his feelings any way she can, and she feels as though his orange silence will not let her.Atwood paints the scene beautifully. A man and a women, sitting across from one another at a table and in the center of the table, an orange, Orange, in the middle of the table [a]nd you, sitting across the table, at a distance with your smile contained, and like the orange in the sun; silent {Quote}. This could be taking place somewhere as simple as Atwoods personal kitchen or maybe in a park at a picnic bench. The woman is sitting there with orange and man in perfect line of view. She first stares at the orange. Her eyes move from the orange to the man and she notices how alike they are because she has no idea whats going on in the inside of either one. The situation then becomes uncomfortable for Atwood as she realizes she is sitting across from someone who is as quiet and awkwardly easily compared to an orange. She wants to know everything about the man including past, present and future. It is not enough that he is just smiling, sitting across from her.As she continues to describe her intense feelings on how she wants to know whats inside the man, she mentions a thing of great importance. Instead of the poem being an actual scene, it could really be taking place anywhere. Maybe she is describing an on-going thought, in which she feels the same wonderment whenever she is sitting across from this man. So, she says, and you, man, orange afternoon lover, wherever you sit across from me (tables, trains, buses) if I watch quietly enough and long enough. It seems as though Atwood realizes that she may never really ever know what the man is thinking, and she will probably always have the same thoughts when sitting across from the man, wherever they are. The reader can now identify wit...
