Alienation Comparison: The Secretary Chant and Alienation and Orange

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It’s self-evident, feelings & emotions are more intimate & personal than percentages, statistics, & numbers. “The Secretary Chant”, a poem about a woman so engrossed in her job she is turning into it, has the theme of alienation. As does “Alienation & Orange Juice: The Invisibility of Labor”, is an article that speaks about a commercial that has no humans shown and causes the alienation of the workers from the end result of their work by the absence of their portrayal. Those texts are both effective to certain degrees in their portrayal of alienation, so one can be considered better than the other in their manner of treating the subject. “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy uses colloquial language, human & sexual identity, descriptive of work, & first person to convey alienation in an intimate, personal manner. “Alienation & Orange Juice: The Invisibility of Labor” by Evan Stewart on the other hand uses formal language & distance to present alienation. “The Secretary Chant” is more effective at evoking alienation for it being more personal & emotional than “Alienation & Orange Juice: The Invisibility of Labor” which is more numerical, factual and distanced. “The Secretary Chant” is innately more personal, one reason being the use of “I”. You have someone to focus on, someone to connect to, who feels corporeal. This is seen in such words as, “My hips are a desk… My head is a badly organized file… from my mouth issue canceled reams… I wonce was a woman”. The language used, which refers body parts to objects & materials is effective in the manner that we can feel the distance as we consider our own bodies while hers turn into something they are not. Added effectiveness to the quote is found in how labor is described. When refe... ... middle of paper ... ...etary Chant”. Due to the distance caused by language and the language used “Alienation & Orange Juice” by Evan Stewart it the lesser effective text at conveying the subject & theme of alienation. Alienated feelings can be caused or seen in any medium. The texts which deal with the theme as a result have widely differing content, though they don’t detract from efficient portrayal depending on how it is written. The human identity, first person, vernacular, & job description when compared to the formal, distanced language of Stewart’s work makes it apparent, what is effective when applying it to the emotion & senses. As much as fact can be effective in demonstrating evocative language, when the language is emotional in using evocative language the mastery is undeniable. Works Cited The Secretary Chant by Marge Piercy, Alienation and Orange Juice by Evan Stewart

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