How this essay will be approached is by first giving a general interpretation of the poem "What Every Woman Should Carry" by Maura Dooley. This will be followed by, with the use of stylistic features, a more thorough interpretation. The stylistic features that will be used are deviation, parallelism as well as cohesion and foregrounding. This will be done by taking a closer look at the only stanza contained in the entire poem which consists of 12 lines. This particular poem could be broken into two parts. Lines one to six appears to deal with the past and six to twelve might specify the present; this will be explained in more depth during the course of the essay.
The content of the poem tells "What Every Woman Should Carry" in her
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The poem is written in the first person, this is apparent in the first line when the pro nouns "my" and "me" are used. The idea of this also being a female narrator is because the contents of this particular handbag contain female items (tampon in line 3).
However, to look at the poem more thoroughly, the use of nouns and grammar is also important. The first part of the poem contains a total of twelve nouns within four sentences. These twelve nouns only contain two actual persons, the narrators' mother and a referral to Saint Theresa; these two people have similar maternal qualities. The positioning of commas and full stops are equally important as they emphasis the importance to objects and also gives the poem tension. But because of all the commas and full stops, I found it hard to find a repetitive rhythm and will go along with the conclusion that there is not one. There are two very short anaphoric sentences which make those items placed into the bag appear important to the narrator in some way, as if they have more then a practical use to them and are symbolic. These two sentences were "Passport" (line7) and "A key" (line 8). However in the second part of the poem there are 6 sentences containing 10 nouns; these nouns are more spaced apart unlike those that appear as if listed in the first part of the poem. The proceeding lines are more
Patriarchal culture has dominated society throughout history. Males have control in many aspects of life and women have continued to fight for equal rights in society. There are many ways women have contributed to the fight for equality; some more physical and other less abrasive. Education and Literature gave the voice to a few women in a male-centered world. Poet Lady Mary Wroth captures the injustices experienced by women in the feminine narrative of Sonnet 9 from her collection of sonnets, songs, and lyrics entitled 'Pamphilia to Amphilantus. In this poem, Wroth explores the thoughts of elite women in the 1700s and uses aspects of her own cultural and historic circumstance to convey the theme of a religious patriarchal society.
In Breazeale’s text, “In Spite of Women”, he touches on how the magazine, Esquire, focuses on incorporating content that is solely directed to the attention of the heterosexual man. In the magazine, Breazeale states that it is an attempt to make men fantasize women only sexually which leaves men with the power and control that they believed that had lost post-depression era. Throughout Kenon Breazeale’s text, he shows how that for there to even be a male consumer, there must be women involved. So, while the magazine touched on things like food, apparel, and home décor, Esquire needed to incorporate erotic images of women in order to capture the attention of heterosexual males. In Breazeale’s text, his purpose is to focus on Esquire to emphasize men’s dominating nature over women in society. In my rhetorical analysis, I will concentrate on analyzing how Breazeale argues that Esquire magazine utilized erotic text, cartoons, and illustrations about women to place the consumer role on males.
The speaker is the voice of the poem, since “I” is used alot in this poem, it is in first person. I imagined the speaker’s
There is significant evidence throughout both 'The Long Queen ' and The Map Women ' to indicate that suffering is a central element of female experience. Both of these poems are present in the 'Feminine Gospels ' written by Carol Ann Duffy. The collection of poetry is seen to be teachings of feminism aiming to provide the reader visions of female identity. One feature of this identity that is examined within these two poems is the theme of mental and physical suffering that women universally endure.
This critical textual analysis will examine feminine identity and the essentialistic ideas of the late nineteenth century between men and women as elaborated by Kaplan and Rogers in “Essentialisms, Determinisms. It will include an analysis of theories regarding dichotomies of biological determinism and cranial classification. Essentialism argues that there are categories of objects and genres that have essential characteristics, notwithstanding individual variation, and that these essential characteristics define the objects and genres to an extent that they reveal truth (Kaplan and Rogers 27). Determinism is a theory or in some cases a doctrine. “Nature” has been the historical burden women have faced. It is not the only such burden, but it has been the largest and the heaviest. Psychological and social implications of essentialist beliefs create gender segregation, inequality, and is often used to excuse gender-based biases in society. These types of ideas are often used as a justification for misogynistic and essentialistic systems in society.
In Tim O'Brien's narrative, The Things They Carried, characters are shown going through excruciatingly difficult war struggles. There are many intriguing themes that O’Brien is sharing in the text, but the most striking is the differences between the way each person handles war. People in the story cope by imagining things for motivation and pleasure. Imagination can help soldiers, but also does not help in war when the coping distracts one from important situations. The most common coping mechanism in the war stories has to do with women because they were used as security blankets during war. Soldiers use women, imagined and real, to offer an escape from war, but due to their inability to understand the war, the women cannot help them cope.
Interest is further maintained throughout the poem by the use of unique literary techniques. Unlike other poems, ‘Famous’ does not rhyme nor does it follow any specific structure. It does, however, correspond with the spontaneity of incorporating everyday objects by not following a set structure. Throughout the poem, sibilance, anaphora, parallelism and allusion have been incorporated to achieve a constant face paced movement throughout the initial seven stanzas of the poem. These stanzas reflect a constant change in setting, replicating the insightful thoughts of an everyday person throughout their day, passing insignificant objects yet subconsciously identifying their importance. This fast paced movement is maintained through the use of anaphora in lines one, two, five and seven. In conjunction with anaphora, personification is used to enhance the already vivid image
A mother teaches her daughter at an early age about values and morals. Most lessons reflect society’s expectations about what it means to be a woman. Throughout Kincaid’s poem titled Girl, I noticed the use of “how to”, followed by “duties” of a woman. Kincaid’s poem is flooded with variety of emotions, and I feel a personal connection to it. Reading the poem the time setting was in the past days. Women did not take a stand, and felt
As the poem progresses, the misplaced or forgotten items become concepts such as names and ideas, and therefore carry more of an impact. For example, forgetting someone’s name, however not uncommon, can be associated with feelings of embarrassment from the forgettor, and annoyance from the forgotten when they discover that they were not important enough to be remembered. The speaker simply shrugs off these losses because “None of [them] will bring disaster,” as mentioned in line 9. Emotion, often associated with memories is introduced in line 10 when the speaker announces, “I lost my mother’s watch.” An item such as a mother’s watch holds sentimental value, unlike the previously mentioned keys; however, the speaker repeats, “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster,” (line 15) indicating that the watch was merely a material possession crowded with memories. At this point, the reader recognizes the feeling of missing something associated with greater losses of objects and ideas the speaker regards with more emotional attachment.
The society always queries about the role of women and for centuries, they have struggled to find their place in a world that is predominantly male oriented. The treatment of women was remarkably negative; they were expected to stay home and fulfil the domestic duties. Literature of that time embodies and mirrors social issues of women in society (Lecture on the Puritans). But, slowly and gradually, situation being changed: “During the first half of the 19th century, women 's roles in society evolved in the areas of occupational, moral, and social reform. Through efforts such as factory movements, social reform, and women 's rights, their aims were realized and foundations for further reform were established” (Lauter 1406). Feminist poets like Emily Dickinson and Anne Bradstreet talked substantially about feminism in different lights in the past two centuries. They were very vocal and assertive about their rights and the ‘rights for women’ in general. While they might have been successful at making a good attempt to obliterate gender biases but still there are lot of disparities between the two genders. Nevertheless, their poetry reflects a deep angst.
Kath makes the poem very personal by the use of words like I and we for example, she begins the poem by saying, “Look up, my people”. This makes it feel more tailored for whomever the poem is directed to. The poem also has a rhyming pattern of ‘not rhyme line’, B, B, C. Also, there is intertextual referencing to the ‘Dream Time’.
Essentially a monologue set within a frame, this poem creates two personae. The anonymous author gives a brief introduction and conclusion. The Wanderer, an aging warrior, who roams the world seeking shelter and aid. The Wanderer’s monologue divides into two distinct parts, the first being a lament for his exile and the loss of kin, friends, home, and the generosity of his king. In nature, he finds absolutely no comfort, for he has set sail on the winter stricken sea. Poignantly, the speaker dreams that he is among his companions, and embracing his king, only to awaken facing the gray, winter sea, and snowfall mingled with hail.
To begin with, the author’s implementation of short sentence fragments throughout the poem illustrates the exasperation and frustration bottled up in women in response to
Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.
Life is full of unexpected changes, advancements and insights. People will look at life through different lenses as they age. However, some social norms will be unwavering. Social norms, such as women being considered the weaker ones in society, have been around for a long time. Hilda Doolittle explores what it means to be a woman in society in her poem “Eurydice”. She alludes to the Orpheus myth and modifies Eurydice’s character from passive to strong to show that women can be resilient and independent even if men try to use women to glorify themselves and even if society tries to downplay women. Doolittle does this through her diction, symbolism and imagery of flowers and colors.
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