The Struggles of Being a Wife and Mother
How does Rita Dove display the struggles of being a wife and mother in Daystar? The poem Daystar tells a story of a woman and her day as a mother and wife. She plays a role as a stay at home mom, most likely while her husband is at work. The woman feels like she has no freedom in her life. The day to day is a full time job for the woman. Just as a man working in a factory all day and receiving a lunch break, the woman in this poem works in her home all day receiving an hour to herself in which she enjoys while she can. It’s obvious that the speaker is emotionally and mentally exhausted. The absence of rhyming makes the poem feel more like a personal story being shared. It’s not very lyrical, but it feels more natural to read. Many people feel that because women stay at home to take care of the house and the children, they shouldn’t be tired or they aren’t really working. In Daystar, Rita Dove demonstrates Elements of poetry, such as; Auditory Imagery, Tone, and
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Irony are in the mist of this poem. The woman seems to only have an hour each day to herself. The woman and her family appear to be poor. The woman has no time to think of the things she would like in life. The woman seems to only find time for herself an hour each day. “She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared pouting from the top of the stairs” (15-17). She had finally gotten her daughter to sleep but she knew she didn’t have long before she woke up. The woman was trying to enjoy the time she had alone for as long as she could. The tones explained in these line, shows how exhausted and frustrated she felt. “She wanted a little room for thinking” (1). When becoming a wife and especially a mother, having time to do things that interest you is almost obsolete. Everything that pertains to parents, gets put on the back burner. Life becomes all about making sure your kids have everything they need, your house is always clean, bills are paid, husband is happy, and making sure there are at least three to four meals a day for everyone. Imagery plays a big role in this poem. I imagine the woman got little sleep and still got up early the next morning to make sure her husband had breakfast as well as a lunch for work. That routine alone can become very tiring. Her husband doesn’t seem like he cares too much about the burdens she’s feeling. “Later that night when Thomas rolled over and lurched into her” (21-22). Her husband didn’t roll over and notice that she was awake. He remained asleep. I can imagine she would have felt a little relief if her husband rolled over to ask what was keeping her awake, did she want to talk about her day, or even if she just needed him to stay awake for a while with her. If she had being able to talk to her husband about each day to look forward to, it would take some weight off her; especially emotionally and mentally. The woman and her family appear to be poor.
Which only adds an extra weight to the struggles she’s having being a wife and mother. The fact that she has to wash her daughter’s diapers, she was in the back yard with the field mice, indicates that they don’t have much money. “But she saw diapers steaming on the line” (2-3). This line suggests, not only did they not have a washer and dryer but they still had to use clothes lines. There are not too many families that still use clothes lines or don’t have washer and dryers. Having to hand wash everything is a job by alone. “And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice” (15-17)? The woman being outside with the field mice makes me think maybe they didn’t live close to the city. Auditory imagery is expressed in these lines. “Sometimes there were things to watch the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating leaf” (8-10). It’s easy to feel the feelings the woman is feeling during this
time. The woman doesn’t have time to bring her own dreams to reality. The only time she gets to dream or even imagine what she’d like to accomplish in life is when she’s lying in bed or sitting for an hour. “Other days she stared until she was assured when she closed her eyes she’d only see her own vivid blood” (11-14). Women of today are accomplishing their dreams, being mothers, wives, and running a household. This woman is so consumed with being a mother and wife; there is no room for extra. Irony exists for the mere fact that from birth to adulthood the female population is brought up to feel fulfilled by simply becoming a wife and a mother; however the poem describes the joyless feeling these roles bring to her. “Why building a palace” (20). This gives the ideas that she was imaging her and her family living in a better house, having all the things they lacked in reality. When the children are asleep is when her dreams come to life, she’s able to take a breath, and think of herself for a while. The title Daystar carries a great meaning. Stars cannot be seen in the day but they are still there. The children as well as her husband couldn’t see how much energy, time, and love it took for her to do all the things they needed her to do. No one noticed how she really felt nor did it cross her husband’s mind that she gets tired too. Being a parent, especially a mom, there is no room for personal issues. No matter what a mother is going through, they must move forward. Giving loved ones all there is to give and not having much time to do what’s best for you can be a recipe for death. For example, majority of caregivers die before their loved one or patient does. It’s a lot of stress taking care of someone else. The absence of rhyming in the poem insinuates that Rita Dove is sharing a personal story. Work Cited Dove, Rita: The Poetry Foundation. “Daystar” 2011. Web. 27 Jan 2015.
Day's curious nature made her want to see first-hand the conditions of life for those who were poor. She adventured through the poor district and looked into the houses and looked into the people, both containing very depressing things inside them. Day did this a lot, and as she did it she would imagine the characters in The Jungle, and imagined their existence in this very alive and very real neighborhood. It would become her childhood that she wou...
She states that there is “No time for a sestina for the working mother,” however, the poem is, in actuality, a sestina about a working mother. Seemingly, this irony illustrates the competitive feelings involved in juggling the commitments of motherhood and outside employment. Additionally, she uses references of “as if shot from a cannon” (7) and “It has tamped her down tight and lit her out the door” (22), as well as the multiple uses of flight. Garrison appears to use these images to demonstrate both the hectic pace of this lifestyle, the push the narrator feels moving from mom to employee, as well as, the guilt she experiences. Finally, she presents opposing images of sunshine and shadows, anxiety and happiness, and talking and listening to express the various sentiments involved in her
The girl's mother is associated with comfort and nurturing, embodied in a "honeyed edge of light." As she puts her daughter to bed, she doesn't shut the door, she "close[s] the door to." There are no harsh sounds, compared to the "buzz-saw whine" of the father, as the mother is portrayed in a gentle, positive figure in whom the girl finds solace. However, this "honeyed edge of li...
She then shifts to discussing TV shows that bring family members together such as Sally Jesse Raphael or Oprah. As the mother imagines what it will be like when her daughter comes home, she brings out the imagery of tears and wrapped arms, and since we have all seen these shows, the reader can see the stage set up with four chairs and the daughter waiting for the parents to come out on stage. We can see the look of surprise on the daughter's face as they come out onto the stage. She has not seen her daughter, Dee, for a while and imagines b...
“He would knock knock on my door, and I’d pretend to be asleep ‘til he got right next to the bed, then I would get up and jump into his arms,” (Beaty 2-4). A sentimental play between a son and father, but one morning the knock never sounded upon the door. “Until that day when the knock never came and my momma takes me on a ride past corn fields on this never ending highway ‘til we reach a place of high rusty gates,” (Beaty 6-7). As one can see, Beaty uses imagery to allow the reader to imagine the corn fields and the highway that seemed to extend for miles on end. Extensively, the mother had taken her son to visit his father in prison, but the boy did not comprehend the window separating him from his father. The boy tried effortlessly to break the glass so he could jump into his father’s arms, all the while his father sat silently and
At the beginning of the story, the author gives us the feeling that a child is narrating this story. She also shows that the child, Sylvia, is at that age where she feels that adults are silly and she knows everything. “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved on our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.” (Bambara 470) Sylvia also tells us about her environment while referencing Miss Moore. “And we kidna hated her too, hated the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek without a damn gas mask. Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block without a first name.” (Bambara 470) This is our introduction to Miss Moore. She is an educated, well groomed person and the children resent her because she is different and their parents force them to spend time with her in the interest of education.
Her character is portrayed as being anxious through the author’s choice of dialogue in the form of diction, which is “waves of her [the mother] anxiety sink down into my belly”. The effect of this is to allow the readers to establish the emotions of the narrator, as well as establish an the uneasy tone of the passage, and how stressful and important the event of selling tobacco bales for her family is. Additionally, the narrator is seen to be uncomfortable in the setting she is present in. This is seen through the many dashes and pauses within her thoughts because she has no dialogue within this passage, “wishing- we- weren’t- here”, the dashes show her discomfort because the thought is extended, and thus more intense and heavy, wishing they could be somewhere else. The effect of the narrator’s comfort establishes her role within the family, the reason she and her sister does not have dialogue symbolizes that she has no voice within the family, as well as establishing hierarchy. The authors use dictation and writing conventions to develop the character of the narrator herself, as well as the mother. The narrator’s focus on each of her parents is additionally highlighted through
The story leads the reader on an exploratory journey to witness the neglect by Emily's extremely guilty mother. This is described by the children's cry when they are left with strangers, lacking attention and love due to the fact she is a single parent at a time where this was not commonly accepted in the community, causing a lot of emotional distress.
It was hard for her mother to have a baby at a young age herself and try to make ends meet was not easy. She needed to lean on others for help, which she thought at the time was right thing to do, but got caught up on her new family. This is why Emily had so much resentment towards her mother. This story is a great example of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. The story does great job showing the mother’s anguish over her daughter, and a depressed teen that needed her mother and is struggling to overcome a very unhappy childhood.
..., a loss that everyone can either sympathize or empathize. However, instead of focusing on the pain and heartbreak of not having a mother, the narrator instead takes strength in the fact that her mother is connected to nature. Although her mother is not physically in her life, her body has, instead, been buried in the ground like a seed. This brings the narrator solace because at least her mother’s essence will always be present as long as there are trees, grass, and animals.
She also did many activities such as spinning, weaving, keeping the house up and also nursed the sick, which could relate to the time period this poem is taking place in also. The intent that the author was trying to get across is one that, people could live happy lives in a very simplistic way, such as Lucinda did. In his poems, Masters used free verse patterns to make his subjects seem more natural. There are no historical or literary allusions to this poem. Although she barely includes any similes or metaphors in her poem, there are a few.
To conclude, “Daystar” and “To a Daughter Leaving Home”, both shared various similarities and differences regarding symbolism and mood throughout both poems. It was easily seen that even in general societal time periods, the mood of “To a Daughter Leaving Home” was very common. Though, in “Daystar” a lot of the responsibilities of a mother was leased over the years and I believe that more roles in the household are now equal. Poetry in these contexts allow the readers to realize the reality of life taken from a parent’s perspective and maybe some of the changes that it has took over the years. I personally enjoyed reading both poems, because it not only gave me the real life outlook of parenthood, but it shows me how my parents view me and
As a housewife and a mother, Godwin's protagonist leads a fairly structured life. Her activities are mostly confined to caring for her husband and child and caring for their home. Though she is obviously unsatisfied with this, as shown by her attempts to discard this role, she is not comfortable without such a structure. Even when she has moved into the white room, she develops a routine of brushing her hair in the sun each day. When she decides to write a poem, she shies away from the project once she realizes how many options are open to her; the idea of so much freedom seems to distress her. Even when she thinks that "her poem could be six, eight, ten, thirteen lines, it could be any number of lines, and it did not even have to rhyme," the words themselves are rushed, the pacing of the sentence communicating her nervousness and discomfort.
m connecting the Fox poem by Rita Dove to a song called Independent Women by Destiny's Child. The song Independent Women talks about a girl who does everything for herself. Like when its says the shoes on my feet, I’ve bought myself and when it says the clothes i’m wearing, i’ve bought myself. The song made me connect to the poem Fox by Rita Dove because in the poem it talkings about how she loves herself and how she loves what she has and is more than any man. When she says that she loves what she has and it enough for her and it's more than a man can handle makes me think that she can do things herself and she don’t need a man so she is an independent Women. Also in the song it says I depend on me makes me think when the poem says which is
Anita once wrote a poem for the song “Monism’s,” and sung to the familiar tune of the William Tell Overture. She describes a typical day of mayhem through the eyes of a mother. Stay at home mothers often know that at times, their lives can be somewhat frustrating. In spite of all the chaos, stay at home moms get the huge responsibility and task of having only one chance to raise their children in such a way that makes a difference in their children’s lives and in society.