The Century Quilt Summary

In the poem, “The century Quilt”, the poet MArilyn Nelson Waniek uses literary devices such as flashbacks, hyperboles and imagery to help the reader comprehend the signifigance of the Centrury Quilt. Imagery is used in thus poem to help the reader unsderstand exactly what hte Century Quilt looks like, and to know more about the speakers family. The first use of imagery can be seen on line 15-17 when the speakers says’ six van Dyke brown squares, two white ones, and one sqaure the yellow brown of Mama’s cheeks.”(15-17) This quote explains exactly how the Century Quilt looks and how specifally the speaker describes the Century Quilt shows how important it is to her. Within this quote it can also be reasonably inferred that this quilt is hand made. When the poem says “the yellow brown of Mama’s cheeks” it helps to show how this

The first flashback comes on lines 9-12 when the poet writes “I remember how I’d planned to inherit that blanket, how we used to wrap ourselves at play and become Cheiftans and princesse.”(9-12) In this flashback it reveals the memories the speaker has of her and her siblings playing in this quilt when the were much younger. This flashback also shows how the speaker cared so much for this quilt that she had planned to inherit it. The fact that she has to inherit it also shows that it is very valueble with the speakers family and it has been in her family for a very long time. Another flashback can be seen on lines 23-27 when the speaker writes “as mama must have under her blanket dreamed again she was a girl again in Kenteucky among her yellow sisters, their grandfather’s white family nodding at them when they met.”(23-27) Within this quote is a flashback ftom the speakers mother about how she used the Century Quilt when she was younger. It can also be inferred that the speakers family is Native American from this