Powerful Theme and Allusions to Sex in Anderson's Womanhood
Catherine Anderson's poem "Womanhood" tells about a young girl and her transition to womanhood. In this intricately woven poem the reader will learn very little about the girl. Neither she nor her mother are ever named, and no information is given about them or their family life. What the reader does discover is what lies ahead for her as she begins her first day sewing rugs. The poem begins a few moments before she enters the gates of the sweatshop that symbolizes her entry into womanhood. Anderson uses metaphor within this poem to dramatize the difference in what lies ahead for her. She should be looking forward to a bright and cheerful future, instead, she is faced with the drudgery of a life working in a sweatshop sewing rugs. Anderson has woven this poem together so there is a link created between the first and second stanzas of the poem. Each line in the first stanza, describing the carefree attitude of the young girl correlates with a line in the second stanza illustrating how her life will be far different after she enters the gates of the factory and womanhood.
Within this poem there are many references or allusions to sex. Most women are considered to have entered womanhood when they have their first sexual experience with a man. Anderson plays up this aspect of becoming a woman in the poem to symbolize the girl's losing her innocence and youth to work in the sweatshop. In essence, she is losing her virginity to that same sweatshop. The first of these allusions to sex is in the opening lines of the poem; "she slides over/the hot upholstery" (1,2). The young girl is described as sliding over hot upholstery, like girls sometimes do to snuggle up next to their boyfriends when driving a car. This verse can also be seen as a metaphor for the hot young skin of a beautiful young girl. Another example of these references is when Anderson describes the girl as "loves humming & swaying to the music" (5). This can be seen as the act of sexual intercourse itself. The rhythmic swaying of bodies can be seen as little else especially when paired with line 25, "rocking back and forth"(25). This is further emphasized by Anderson by her use of the ampersand signs (&) which she only uses in these two lines.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
The Vikings are had arrived in North America. The Vikings were in North America about 10 years (Weiner 4). They settled and made a life for themselves in North America. They had learned to adjust to the weather to survive for all those years. The Vikings were the first Europeans and Christians to come to North America (Steel 2). The Vikings explored North American waters for partners to trade with (Pringle 4). The Vikings wanted
The Vikings in their time were the best shipbuilders and sailors in the world. Their ships were very strong as they were made out of a very long-lasting type of wood, which was oak wood. They thought of many creative ways to make their ships more durable, such as dipping sheep?s wool in tar and then filling in the ships gaps to make it waterproof. The Vikings had long voyages, passing many parts of Europe and simultaneously speeding at least glimpses of their amazing technology skills to the people who saw there ships. For example many people from Ireland and Brittan must have seen their ships as they travelled from their homeland Scandinavia to France in the year 798. But their amazing technology skills would have not been spread throughout the world with out the help of navigation.
This stanza begins the encounter. It sets the scene saying it is a lazy street. He begins to describe the woman's beauty, pointing out her hazel eyes and tiny feet.
In summary, the account for a woman’s femininity is primarily encouraged by man. Wollstonecraft inspires readers as she debates the right for woman equality to man, with most, if not all females agreeing with her argument and powerful ideas. Thus it is possible to conclude that the influence of academic literature does complicate everyday contemporary understanding, as reality of the day has differing points of view in writing. According to the referenced literature, woman in contemporary society are considered are flaw of nature however observed by women unreasonably.
Not only does this personification alter the pace of the poem, but the fact that the woman’s breasts – important sexual organs and symbols of female sexuality – are portrayed as sleeping conveys a lack of arousal and general desire, particularly on the behalf of the woman. This sense of a lack of desire between the gypsy and the woman is communicated later in the poem through the description of the characters’ undressing before they begin to have sex:
‘The woman’ of the poem has no specific identity and this helps us even further see the situation in which the woman is experiencing, the lost of one’s identity. Questions start to be raised and we wonder if Harwood uses this character to portray her views of every woman which goes into the stage of motherhood, where much sacrifice is needed one being the identity that was present in society prior to children.
He mentions how far women have come since his grandmother's day, but realizes the country as a whole has more room to grow. He mentions how tough it can be for women to juggle a demanding career while raising a family. Both text reference what honor motherhood is but they also admit the demanding workforce can determine how successful a mother they can be. Women today may not face slavery, but they face double standards that limit them to be successful professionals and parents.
Ellis, Elisabeth G., and Anthony Esler. "Raiders from the North." Prentice Hall World History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011. N. pag. Print.
This creates a despair, of hopelessness and of downheartedness. The woman, on multiple occasions, wrote down, “And what can one do?” This lets the reader know that women as a whole were very oppressed in ...
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.
She tells the girl to “walk like a lady” (320), “hem a dress when you see the hem coming down”, and “behave in front of boys you don’t know very well” (321), so as not to “become the slut you are so bent on becoming” (320). The repetition of the word “slut” and the multitude of rules that must be obeyed so as not to be perceived as such, indicates that the suppression of sexual desire is a particularly important aspect of being a proper woman in a patriarchal society. The young girl in this poem must deny her sexual desires, a quality intrinsic to human nature, or she will be reprimanded for being a loose woman. These restrictions do not allow her to experience the freedom that her male counterparts
...en a woman conforms to a society’s standards she is not as beautiful as someone who is unrestricted of these limitations. Consequently, comparing her to a “goldenrod ready to bloom” (19) draws implications of flowers blooming in springtime, which are lovely. This allows the reader to see natural life growing from the woman and beginning to break free of the shell society creates. She shows resistance to the ideas of how women should act be look like. The poem ends with potential: the women can change how she is viewed in the world but she has to take the first step.
Typically, the image of a Viking is a barbaric, bearded man plundering and destroying a neighboring village. This is actually the stereotypical viewpoint. In actuality, Vikings, have a very different image. For example, Vikings did not wear furry boots or furry armor, they did not have horned helmets, they invaded Britain, and they also were the first to discover America! They were also experts in nautical technology, crafts, trading, warfare and many other skills (Jonsson 1). With all of these traits, the Vikings seem like an unstoppable force in the European continent. But, who were the Vikings? The Vikings were actually venturesome seafarers. This means that they were travelers who were constantly exploring and looking for new areas of land. There roots can be traced all the way back to 6000 B.C. were nomadic men traveled in primitive crafts up the Denmark coast. Fast forward two millennia and these nomadic people have established permanent homes, but still using the boat for food and travel. As stated before, they were not just raiders, although they did do this frequently, but they were actually expert traders, trading all around the world. It wasn’t until around 793 A.D. that a Viking explosion took place in northern Europe (Jonsson 2). Raids began to take place on neighboring villages and their places of worship. To some this is the only type of knowledge they have about Vikings. However, their culture was something to be admired. Trading, religion, and everyday life are all important parts of a Viking culture.
The young girl in the story is struggling with finding her own gender identity. She would much rather work alongside her father, who was “tirelessly inventive” (Munro 328), than stay and work with her mother in the kitchen, depicted through, “As soon as I was done I ran out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before my mother thought of what to do next” (329). The girl is torn between what her duties are suppose to be as a woman, and what she would rather be doing, which is work with her father. She sees her father’s work as important and worthwhile, while she sees her mother’s work as tedious and not meaningful. Although she knows her duties as a woman and what her mother expects of her, she would like to break the mould and become more like her father. It is evident that she likes to please her father in the work she does for him when her father says to the feed salesman, “Like to have you meet my new hired man.” I turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (328-329). Even though the young girl is fixed on what she wants, she has influences from both genders i...