Analysis Of The Woman Hanging From The 13th Floor Window

Joy Harjo’s “The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window”

Joy Harjo is a really known author who likes to write about women with some of her Native American writing. She is more direct than other writers like Wendy Rose, but still has that cryptic way of teaching yet easier to understand. Which is something I particularly like.

her style of writing is, like I said before, Indirect but still direct, for example at the end of the “Hanging from the 13th floor” Joy Harjo says, “ as she falls from the 13th floor window on the side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again” (Rose 70-74) In here she says something deep yet simple, to give up or go back; and that’s what I like about this writer’s style, the easy to understand writing with a small dash of crypticism. Another example can be Harjo’s “The blanket around her”, this whole poem

is just a big metaphor which is effortless easy to understand.

“ maybe it is her birth which she holds close to herself for her death which is just as inseparable and the white wind that encircles her is a part just as the blue sky hanging in turquoise from her neck oh woman remember who you are woman it is the whole earth”(1-12). This poem besides being short it gives a brobdingnagian message which for me the blanket means memories, which this particular authors writes about, as memories is used for the

poem of “The Woman Hanging From the 13th Floor” for most of the story is just the telling of the woman’s life sort of like a flash before her life, coming back to the point of the blanket, put blanket at the beginning of the poem instead of maybe and it would make sense, for instance, memories is her birth which she holds close, see? , This is what I like of her writing, just like a puzzle figure out some pieces, and everything else would be easy to connect.
Now a lot of the poems Harjo writes, are related to woman, as feminism is one of her many concerns, as she uses a female character to lead in most of her poem. like the blanket or the woman from the 13th floor; and another of her poems can be used to show this female lead idea. “She Had Some Horses” It’s in the title not to much to explain, as all of the poem starts with the line “she had some horse” followed by something that would answer what horses represent in this story which horse can be many things for me it’s friends, as an example to explain my reasoning I am going to quote the 13th line of this poem “She had some horses who laughed too much” and another quote “Who cried in their beer”. quite easy to understand she had some friends who laughed too much, or she some friends who cried in their beer.
Going back to the Joy Harjo, She is a wonderful writer, who shows a lot of emotion with really small poems, that are easy to understand and are loved by many, she writes about feminism as most of her stories are related to woman, but that can change, as the poems can be taken with different meanings because you can be in the characters shoes without a problem.
Harjo, an amazing writer with great talent that teaches a lot of people through her poems that are hardly hard to understand.