Audre Lorde defines the erotic as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings; it is the assertion of the live force of women, creative energy empowered and knowledge of ourselves.” Lorde further states that it is the “recognising the power of the erotic within our lies can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world” (Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic,” Sister Outsider, p.54-59). As Lorde is suggesting in her essay, those who experience oppression because of sexual desire or sexuality should embrace the erotic. Through Lorde’s poetry, the poet attempts to give those from a marginalised group a voice within literature. In addition, Audre Lorde emphasises in her poetry, as does …show more content…
As Lorde challenges and reframes the unicorn seduction narrative from Western folklore in “The Black Unicorn;” for while the unicorn has always remained white and male, her unicorn is Black and female. Such a representational shift suggests that Lorde is attempting to challenge women’s experiences that have previously been unnamed or have been deemed “unspeakable.” Lorde writes: “It is not on her lap where the horn rests / but deep in her moonpit / growing.” (Audre Lorde, “The Black Unicorn”, 1978, p.3). Through these two lines, Lorde is evoking sensuality void of male involvement, instead refiguring the dominant iconography of the phallic “horn”, inverted; it is implying that the horn is the marker of female sexual power. According to Cherise Pollard, “Black arts poetry often used phallic symbols to idealise black warriors revolutionary power” because within the Black Arts Movement, powerlessness was associated with femininity and homosexuality (Cherise Pollard, Sexual Subversions, Political Inversions: Women’s Poetry and the Politics of the Black Arts Movement, 1996,
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
In the world of teenagers everything seems to come and pass by so quickly. For instance the beginning of senior year. In Spite of being happy and excited were also generally nervous and anxious to see what our future holds. As senior year comes to an end, It then becomes as temporary as the summer sun but also the boundary of our life before we enter adulthood. Even then our future is still undefined.
The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf.
Throughout history society has been controlled by men, and because of this women were exposed to some very demanding expectations. A woman was expected to be a wife, a mother, a cook, a maid, and sexually obedient to men. As a form of patriarchal silencing any woman who deviated from these expectations was often a victim of physical, emotional, and social beatings. Creativity and individuality were dirty, sinful and very inappropriate for a respectful woman. By taking away women’s voices, men were able to remove any power that they might have had. In both Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, we see that there are two types of women who arise from the demands of these expectations. The first is the obedient women, the one who has buckled and succumbed to become an empty emotionless shell. In men’s eyes this type of woman was a sort of “angel” perfect in that she did and acted exactly as what was expected of her. The second type of woman is the “rebel”, the woman who is willing to fight in order to keep her creativity and passion. Patriarchal silencing inspires a bond between those women who are forced into submission and/or those who are too submissive to maintain their individuality, and those women who are able and willing to fight for the ability to be unique.
As a child a role model is need to be guided toward the right path. Being a child who is neglected, the fear of being different holds them back from being who they were meant to be. This poem is filled with symbolization that makes the reader connect with the speaker's emotions and thoughts. "Hanging Fire" written by Audre Lorde is a poem where the protagonist talks about all her fears and isolation; she is a little girl who wants guidance from her mother who is behind a closed door. The speaker is living in a world where appearance is everything, so asks herself, "How come my knees are always so ashy" (Lorde lines 6-7).
What is it about sex that makes everyone so uncomfortable? Upon reading Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home, one of the major themes that the novel goes in depth about is Nidali’s sexual awakening. Many students would argue that this novel is littered with too much sexual activity, i.e. masturbation. However, A Map of Home is a novel about finding your place in this world; the search for your identity and purpose. Sexual identity plays a significant part of that continuum. You may question, “Well, could you have figure out a way to describe her story without all the sex stuff?” This statement would demolish the novel’s relatable and sheer honest tone, as well as disintegrate the genuineness behind the narrative if Jarrar would omit Nidali’s sexual experiences. The complete fact that young teenagers do think about sex so often makes one grasp the true relatability this novel showcases through the main character’s sexual experiences. In this essay, I plan to explore the importance of sexual awakening, Nidali’s own reasons for experimenting with her sexuality, and what we can ultimately learn from being open with what we want in that context.
Poems have never been my favorite thing, however, the poems that I chose to analyze today were amazing. They had meaning that took me quite a while to understand, but in the end it all came together. Audre Lorde is a black, lesbian, published author, mother and self-proclaimed warrior.
In the article, “Uses of the Erotica: The Erotic as Power,” Audre Lorde examines and further challenges the conventional view of eroticism in a society organized by patriarchy. Many people may perceive Lorde’s interpretation of the term “erotic” as unconventional—the idea that being erotic means having a strong internal sense of satisfaction that ultimately empowers an individual, specifically in women. Lorde begins her article by stating one of the many definitions she believes to describe the term “erotic.” As a whole, “the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling” (Lorde, 53). This definition speaks predominantly to the innate power of women and those who want to feel liberated in every aspect of their lives.
In comparing the work of Luis Negron and Audre Lorde, one becomes able to unveil the often unrecognized distinction between the erotic and the pornographic aspects of sexuality. Moreover, the main character of The Chosen One, displays the very contrast that Lorde refers to in The uses of the Erotic. Although, the character representing these sexual variances happens to be male in The Chosen One. The need for the distinction between pornographic and erotic allows for Lorde to display the importance of feminine power within sexuality. After defining the importance of living instead of existing within an erotic culture, it can be presumed that the encounters of the boy in The Chosen One are seen as pornographic acts of oppression and not real
For some people accepting reality can be challenging and a rebellious concept. This is an internal conflict that needs to be faced within oneself. Within the poem, “Coal” by Audre Lorde, the author is learning to embrace who she is and what makes up her central identity as a person. The author is discovering how to cope with how she is being perceived in this world. Throughout the poem, Lorde uses figurative language and specific imagery to explain her deepest feelings about how she thinks the world views her. She is very passionate and this causes her to release anguish to let others know how she is feeling.
To italicize, Lorde believes that it is not differences between races that separate women, but rather it is a “refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from…misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation” (Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” 115). By stressing the belief that the differences between women “are insurmountable barriers, or do not exist at all” (Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” 115), valuable cognition is wasted when it should be challenged towards dissecting the roots of difference, “[developing] new definitions of power[,] and [pioneering] new patterns of relating across difference” (Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” 123). Lorde surmises that “human difference
Sylvia Plath’s poetry reverberates with universal female experience and anxieties; it addresses a female upbringing, pregnancy, childbirth, marriage while also critically engaging with stereotypes of femininity, often illustrating these through myth or metaphor. These feminine themes are recurrent throughout her poetry, often written about with a sense of ambivalence or fear. Putting aside Plath’s own autobiographical influences in the production of this poetry, the inclination towards darkness is a notable trend among women drawn to writing. Plath’s poetry often draws upon stereotypes, and this may reflect the toxicity of the ‘Poetess’ and stereotypic, often creatively paralysing, expectations that underpin the label. Germaine Greer notes that female poets feel pressure to “cannibalise” themselves because “unhappy women will be attracted to poetry, and that poetry will give their unhappiness permanent form in intransigent text” (Greer, 391).
If we take a look at the issue of sexuality and how it develops throughout the novel, sexuality represents a site where the notions of racism, sexism and heterosexism intersect: “African-American women’s experiences with pornography, prostitution, and rape demonstrate how erotic power becomes commodified and exploited by social institutions” (Collins 167). If we consider the history of rape of slave women, as “rape has been one fundamental tool of sexual violence directed against African-American women” (146) and if we accept Patricia Collins’ claim according to which “all systems of oppression rely on harnessing the power of the erotic” (128), then we may conclude here that sexuality is a crucial element in Celie’s path to survival and personal growth: if the power of the erotic plays a distinct role in establishing relations of domination, then “reclaiming and self-defining that same eroticism may constitute one path toward Black women’s empowerment” (128) and this is exactly the case of Celie and her sexual and romantic relationship with Shug. Thus, sexuality comes to represent the main tool in fighting against these oppressions. If in the beginning of the novel, Celie is the victim of oppression and domination through the act of rape (“First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around.
Emily Dickinson Poetry has been around for many years. Poems are a piece of literature that use rhythm, or beautiful language to express imaginary or elevated thoughts of one’s life. Poetry is a piece of someone mind. Most poets will write about life or emotions. This is entertaining because it allows ones to think upon their own life.
Growing from a young woman who was humiliated by the duality of her sexuality, to a woman who reclaims her sexuality through her sexual experiences as a dominatrix. Although not all feminists think alike, some may even dispute Febos claims; that being a dominatrix can result in female empowerment. In recent conventions regarding, ‘dominatrix’ the figure is either hypersexualized or seen as a threat. This harmful parallel normalized ‘dommes’ or ‘dominatrixes’ as a threat to 'traditional sexuality.' Ultimately, these critics believe this line of work leads to the disempowerment of women and creates a hostile persona. Feminists theorists such as Andrea Dworkin and Audre Lorde both echo the following views, "women facilitate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power in their performance in the fetish realm of BDSM... is linked to female sexuality and violence."(Dworkin, 410) Dworkin claims of BDSM reinforcing violence in women rest upon the questionable assumption that women are not in control. Consequently, arguing that the inherent violence that exists within these practices are primarily those directed against women. Lorde reinforces this idea when she states how BDSM legitimizes the male desire to subdue, assault and control women. These ideas are by extension, a reflection of the negative patriarchal connotations and the stigmas that are attached to BDSM.