Sharon Olds Family Life and her History

1432 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What is the gender of the poem by sharon olds

Whether it is consciously or subconsciously, who we are as adults is very much determined (or influenced) by the experiences that we live through during childhood. These experiences and relationships that we have at such a young age can shape who we are going to be for the rest of our lives. Sharon Olds is a great poet who dives very deeply into her own memories, particularly ones of her childhood, to figure out what they actually mean to her. In doing this, Sharon Olds writes some pretty edgy poems that can make people cringe from the extreme amount of sexual details and emotion that comes with them. The main ideas of these poems can range anywhere from the glass that the speaker’s father is spitting into before he dies (The Glass) to the speaker and a significant other considering suicide at a restaurant (The Promise). This is what makes her an awesome poet though; she digs through her memory to find the experiences that had the biggest impression on her life, evaluates them, and then unashamedly tells about every detail. While writing in this way, Sharon Olds has an amazing ability to point out social inequalities to the reader. These inequalities are specifically pertaining to the patriarchy that we live in today and what effect it has on femininity and masculinity, especially speaking in terms of father/ daughter relationships. The memories she writes about are all very personal and tell of many family problems that she had at the time of her childhood and adolescence. Whether it be the speaker and her sister playing with dolls while their parents fought (The Pact), the speaker remembering when her mother divorced her father (The Victims), the speaker telling about her feelings when her father died (The Feelings), or when t... ... middle of paper ... ...y my mother swam in me.” The speaker wants to make her daughter happy, while the speaker’s mother just wants her so that she could be happy. Olds can certainly push the envelope when it comes to controversial messages in her poetry. Whether the poem is about sex, violence, death, or feelings, the reader can expect Olds to bring her family into the mix to really make one think about their life as well. In my opinion, Sharon Olds is not the extreme feminist that many think she is. She still has many attachments to her father and he died when she was very young. Even though Olds would probably identify with these connections as only biological or genetic, that is still something. Nevertheless, Olds has always been infatuated with gender roles and includes them in almost all of her works even though she doesn’t talk about them specifically, there are many examples.

Show More
Related

  • Theme Of Father And Child By Gwen Harwood

    985 Words  | 2 Pages

    The social group of women is often focused on by Gwen Harwood within Selected Poems of Gwen Harwood through the themes of motherhood and domestic life which play an integral role in many of her poems. These themes define a stereotypical role for women representing them as subordinate in a patriarchal society through a range of her poems such as In the Park, The Violets and Prize Giving. Harwood portrays women as subservient and inferior, with the main purpose to be household mothers and wives which was based on society’s expectations during Harwood’s time however her later poems such as Father and Child develop to contain hope for societal progression through occasionally defying these stereotypes.

    Read More

  • Olds’ Effective Use of Linking Devices in The Elder Sister

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    When writing poetry, there are many descriptive methods an author may employ to communicate an idea or concept to their audience. One of the more effective methods that authors often use is linking devices, such as metaphors and similes. Throughout “The Elder Sister,” Olds uses linking devices effectively in many ways. An effective image Olds uses is that of “the pressure of Mother’s muscles on her brain,” (5) providing a link to the mother’s expectations for her children. She also uses images of water and fluidity to demonstrate the natural progression of a child into womanhood. Another image is that of the speaker’s elder sister as a metaphorical shield, the one who protected her from the mental strain inflicted by their mother.

    Read More

  • What Is The Theme Of The Unquiet Bed By Dorothy Livesay

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the world, there are rudimentary gender characteristics, both physical and psychological, that differentiate a man from a woman. However, some people do not associate themselves with these stereotypical characteristics. Notwithstanding the amount of progress achieved in the past few decades, gender stereotypes are still solemn. Qualities like strength, intellect and sexual deviance are usually associated with men, while qualities like irrational, emotional and insecure are more relevant to women. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed”, each poet captures the expression of female

    Read More

  • Sharon Olds' The Possessive

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.

    Read More

  • Erstwhile

    663 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.

    Read More

  • "Sex Without Love:"by Sharon Olds

    594 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco. After graduating from Stanford she moved east to earn a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. Olds describes the completion of her doctorate as a transitional moment in her life: standing on the steps of the library at Columbia University, she vowed to become a poet, even if it meant giving up everything she had learned. The vow she made--to write her own poetry, no matter how bad it might be--freed her to develop her own voice. Olds has published eight volumes of poetry, includes The Dead and the Living (1984), The Wellspring (1996), The Gold Cell, (1987) etc. As in her earlier works, she has been praised for the courage and emotional power of her work which continues to witness pain, love, desire, and grief with persistent courage. "Sex Without Love," by Sharon Olds passionately describes the author's disgust for casual sex and her attitude toward loveless sex as a cold and harmful act. She brilliantly uses various poetic techniques to animate the immortality of loveless sex through her words and her great description evoke clear image in the reader mind.

    Read More

  • Hardships in Boys and Girls by Alice Munro

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to her.

    Read More

  • Compare and Contrast

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds is about a sexual experience that she had. In the article, “Sharon Olds” the author states, “Olds is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally scathing poetry which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events”. Throughout the poem Olds uses graphic imagery to tell about this experience that she has had. She uses words such as “death-grip holding to life, violent hands clasped tight barley moving, like being closed in a great jaw and eaten”. The thought of rape should come with the use of these words and sex because of how violent it is but at no point in the poem does she say she does want to be having sex or wish it would stop. Then at the end of the poem she goes on to say that “you secured me in your arms till I slept- that was love” this part of the poem is saying that it isn’t sex that she thinks is love it is being held by the one by a special someone. This tells a lot about how Olds views love, it shows that sex isn’t love to her maybe just holding hands or an occasion hug goes a lot farther.

    Read More

  • Talcott Parsons And Bales: Leader Of The 1950s-Nuclear Family

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    Family structure and stability have constantly evolved and been researched in aspects of sociology. Following World War II, the family ideology in the 1950’s was brought to the attention of Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales (1955) whom demonstrated how transitioning from an agricultural society to that of an industrialization one played an important role in altering family life and structure. Parsons and Bales further expressed how gender role specialization was vital in the continuous of family solidarity. The “instrumental” male father role as the leader of the family responsible for providing the income and support as the “expressive” role which is that of the female mother delivers her contribution to the family through house work and nurture

    Read More

  • A Father's Unfailing Prescence

    1009 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.

    Read More

  • Sojourner Truth Speech

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Cosmopolitan Girl

    1128 Words  | 3 Pages

    Determined, realistic, and self-confident are not words that I hold to a specific gender. That might be the difference between someone who was born in generation x and the baby boomers and earlier. According to society these few words are associated with the male gender, since most of society that is able to determine what is and what is not acceptable are older we are labeled as a whole to have come to these conclusions. Perhaps June Jordan, the writer of Memo: 1980 knew something that the rest of society did not. And it might be that her revolutionized way of thinking was foreshadowing on what was to come. Hopefully through out my analyzing and explication I can come to what Jordan was trying to get across to us the readers. And if not I will have my own opinion on what Memo: 1980 means and that is what poetry is all about for the reader come to their own conclusions of what they have read, and hopefully have developed more analytical skills.

    Read More

  • Cordila Fine's Delusions Of Gender, By Cordelia Fine

    1120 Words  | 3 Pages

    She talks about how women and men act similar because of their emotions such as happiness, remorse and sadness but due to a different part of their brain, their reactive response to each emotion makes them different. This is where the stereotype of each gender comes into play with the female coming as better caretakers because they react better to happiness and comfort whereas the males are better workers because they react more to a reward. This is proven throughout time and history because while the women stayed home in many societies, the male was able to go out hunt, get food and provide for the

    Read More

  • An Analysis of To Have without Holding by Marge Piercy

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.

    Read More

  • A Women's Relationship With Men in The Poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sylvia wrote “Daddy” in 1963 about a girl’s emotional struggle with her German father who died and was like a monster. This father represents Sylvia’s own father who died when she was young. She wants to destroy him but he cannot come back to life. His death has caused Sylvia to have problems with all the men in her future including her former husband Ted, who she also refers to in the poem. This is the first type of literary criticism that stands out, feminist ...

    Read More

More about Sharon Olds Family Life and her History

Open Document