Analysis Of How To Triumph Like A Girl By Ada Limón

In How to Triumph Like a Girl by Ada Limón, the speaker discusses her appreciation for female horses, but also conveys an overall message that can be applied to the female form in general. While describing her love for the “lady horses”, her words create these somewhat generalized themes that continue to be further illustrated throughout the poem. Such as the concept that femininity is not weak, gender does not equal worth, and that triumph does not actually have anything to do with being a girl, or otherwise. The very first line of the text, “I like the lady horse best,” comes off to the reader as being sort of childlike, almost as though the speaker is trying to make a point which anyone could make or come to on their own. It only makes

She says this as though it’s an obvious statement, not one she should have to explain any further, but also as though it’s a lesser reason. As though being attracted to the horses simply because they are feminine isn’t quite reason enough for validation. She then goes on to connect herself personally to the horses she has been talking about. The horses are not simply just horses, they are “lady horses”. Which means that even though the speaker and the horses are of different species altogether, they share at least one thing in common, and therefore the speaker has a chance at being able to achieve the same type of carefree self-proclaimed life that the horses live. “As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me,” she says (line8-9). Even though the horses are these massive animals that were built for endurance and strength, and the speaker is just a human, small and fragile, maybe she too can see and carry herself as the horses do. Not only that, but she considers them to be “dangerous”, and that’s the very first connection to herself that she identifies with these horses in the poem at all. Maybe she also wishes to be dangerous, not because she wants to cause harm, but she wants to be capable the way that they are. They do not know that there is any other way to be, unlike humans who constantly run through the possibilities and probabilities, and perhaps that is a part of their power and