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How women are portrayed in Robert Browning's poems
How women are portrayed in Robert Browning's poems
Gender in poetry
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In all great poetry, poets use many writing techniques to convey their stories. Poets are known for using all different types of tones and languages such as imagery, symbolism, themes and many more to create a path of understanding to the readers. In the poem “Homage to My Hips” by Lucile Clifton, it can be lead to think that the poem may be about Lucile herself or in general any woman with larger hips. Lucile came from the African American decent and was told by her mother to embrace where she came from. In this poem, I believe Lucile uses her background to her advantage to create such a wonderful poem. The speaker in the poem expresses the tone of confidence which shows power in the celebration of women. From the beginning of poem, the tone starts off calm and informative. The speaker explains how her hips are big and how they need space to move around in. “they don't fit into little petty places “these hips are free hips.” (lines 4-6) The speaker still seems as if she is comfortable with herself as she mentions the aspects of having big hips. In just these six lines one can see how the speaker expresses her body and how she is not upset nor angry about it. Instead, she remains calm and …show more content…
these hips are magic hips. I have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top.” (lines 11-15) One can easily understand that the speaker is using a bit of humor when talking about putting a spell on men with her magical hips. She acknowledges that despite how big they may be that they can still turn heads. By the end of this poem you can conclude that after all the speaker had mentioned about her hips, that her tone had gone from firm and confident to semi humorous. Sometimes it is best to soak and laugh at ourselves. After all, laughing makes us healthier. With the speaker stating that she has magical hips, you can tell she owns her self-worth and can joke about it without feeling any type of hurt or resentment about her
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
Perfect, as they see her, only describes the traits belonging to her surface. Her half-nakedness is a reference only to her clothing, but not so presumptuous as to insinuate it is that of her soul. Simile implies the angelic beauty of her voice, and notes that it is only accentuated by elation, and memories of good times. A shift in perspective begins a much more profound journey. Mckay employs the narrator’s viewpoint for a twist, allowing us to see more of her. No longer through the distorted view of youth, we see the dancer revealed differently, deeper. As a silent observer standing in the back of a dark, smoky club, the mysterious narrator sees her light amongst the darkness. Her scars of lost love and shattered dreams create an image of fierce grace that only ripens with the maturity of womanhood, and accentuates the true beauty within her soul, of overcoming, of standing proud, of facing the storm, no matter what. Life itself is inevitably vulnerable yet somehow, strength, even when silent, prevails. With her trunk strong and head held high, he speaks of the storms she has weathered, which is her tale of hardship, adversity, and inevitable oppression. He sees her hurt, and recognizes, even if only for a moment. Time stands still. As if jolted back to reality by the clanking of coins being tossed about the stage, the young riled audience, like a pack of wild beasts, devour
...es her. The imageries of pink Mustang signifies her social class, while “Road” indicates her location as nowhere within a community. The commodification of her body means it can be touched in ways derogatory to her dignity whether she likes it or not because it is a saleable commodity that doesn’t belong to her. Her silver painted nipples identifies silver coins. Silver coins represent monetary value put on her body. Silver painted nipples also mean the attractive way in which a product is packaged. The poem also depicts the defiance of women against how she has been treated. She identifies man as the one that kisses away himself piece by piece till the last coin is spent. However, she cannot change the reality of her location, and temporal placement.
Every individual cares about how they appear to others; their shape and in this informal, narrative essay titled Chicken-Hips, Canadian journalist and producer Catherine Pigott tells her story on her trip to Gambia and her body appearance. In this compelling essay the thesis is implicit and the implied thesis is about how women are judged differently on their appearance in different parts of the world, as various cultures and individuals have a different perception on what ideal beauty is. In this essay Pigott writes about her trip to Africa specifically Gambia and how upon arriving there she was judged to be too slim for a woman. She goes to write about how differently she would be judged back home by mentioning “in my county we deny ourselves
She draws a picture of her equality to men by expressing her strength and hard-working efforts as she “ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me.” Again, following this statement, “Ain’t I a woman?” She rhythmically continues this pattern, making a claim to her equality she feels with males and then following it with the powerful question “Ain’t I a woman?”.
In the first few lines Clifton says, “these hips are big hips / they need space to / move around in”(lines 1-3). These lines immediately invoke an idea of hips, implied women, needing opportunities and room in this world to make a difference. Women will not fit into societies molds predetermined for them simply because of there gender. Instead, women need the same opportunities for advancement and success that men are given. These lines begin to allude to the fluid movement of the poem that is similar to hips swinging. The movement of the poem is amplified by the poet’s significant choice to use free form instead of a more traditional form. Clifton’s decision to use free form is another way for her to show women breaking tradition with success and grace. The movement and free form in this poem also symbolizes the way in which women are approaching the male dominated world. Women are attempting to break down stereotypes while proving they are capable and intelligent, in order to reiterate that gender has no affect on one’s intelligence or
In the beginning of the poem I focused on the way women are perceived throughout history in our systematic patriarchal society. Unfortunately, in Latino counties due to the machismo embedded in the culture, women are often seen as sexual objects who are incapable of male-oriented gender roles in society. For instance, when I describe the inequities and lack of privileges women have compared to men “Caught up in a world that is ruled by heterosexual patriarchal men” (Line 3). In other words, many women are enslaved and trapped to follow society’s gender norms. Women are restricted to a certain category. Specifically, in Latino countries where machismo is still prevalent. According to Michael Hardin, the Americas adopted machismo from the Spanish during the colonial period. Hardin speaks of the
The poem begins with a young woman (the dancer), she craves attention and has big dreams of ultimately becoming famous. She is young, full of life, talented and gorgeous. However, the attention she craves is only fulfilled through performing on stage. This limits her, in all aspects of her life, because this uncontrollable desire could lead to her ultimately destruction. As a result, Barnes wrote, “Life had taken her and given her. One place to sing.” (Barnes). The dancer is trapped in this life not only by the opportunities life had given her but also for her own selfish desires. Yet, the thing she desires more than fame is love. Although her life is busy, with performing and partying she is in search for love. Barnes explained the dancers quest for love, “looked between the lights and wine. For one fine face…. found life only passion wide” was an unsuccessful one instead she only found lust. In other words, although she is looking for love she is looking for it in the wrong places, because she is trying looking in between the “lights” she letting her desire for fame interfere with her definition of love. She should look for someone who yearns to care for her spiritually, mentally and physically. Yet, what she aspires is for someone to love her that has status and wealth. To obtain what she wants she is
The third stanza starts off saying, “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty, / exercise, diet, smile and wheedle” (12-14). In the girls’ mind she is becoming completely fake to herself to make society happy; this in turn makes her dissatisfied. She soon grows tired of pretending and, “cut[s] off her nose and her legs (17).
With the opening of the poem Sanchez laughs at how sure the young women is about love: “forgive me if I laugh you are so sure about love” (1-2) by her statement, she seems content that the young women clearly does not
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:
In 1962 when the poem had been written women could not achieve any equality within the work place; Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative professional positions. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act went through Congress, an amendment made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender as well as race. Even though women’s rights were progressing, they had not progressed enough and women were still being dominated by males. She uses the phrase ‘any more back shoe, in which I lived like a foot’, the use of the word ‘foot’ could be referring to men as the shoe then women being the foot therefore the men have pursued the needs of women rather than it being the other way around which was a general ideology at the time.
This, in fact, is an example of “dynamic decomposition” of which the speaker claims she understands nothing. The ironic contradiction of form and content underlines the contradiction between the women’s presentation of her outer self and that of her inner self. The poem concludes with the line “’Let us go home she is tired and wants to go to bed.’” which is a statement made by the man. Hence, it “appears to give the last word to the men” but, in reality, it mirrors the poem’s opening lines and emphasises the role the woman assumes on the outside as well as her inner awareness and criticism. This echoes Loy’s proclamation in her “Feminist Manifesto” in which she states that women should “[l]eave off looking to men to find out what [they] are not [but] seek within [themselves] to find out what [they] are”. Therefore, the poem presents a “new woman” confined in the traditional social order but resisting it as she is aware and critical of
From the beginning, she used “big hips” because woman have bigger hips than men for easy childbirth, which appeared she described herself as a woman. She said woman have their own free will, they can do what they wanted and nothing could hold it back. They are epic declaration of how woman have their own free will, skills and ability to do what they wanted. By claiming her hips are magic, she can manipulate men to spin like a top suggest she have the power to make men do what she wanted. This poem is a powerful ideal of feminist, for some people. While, for other, it is nothing other than claiming woman is the best, and dominating men is called “feminist”. After reread several times, the poem reveal more than just a message, it real the author’s
...l pleasure that matters over the woman’s. “So mi fuck her out hard when she position from back, worse de gul skin clean, yes and de pum pum fat.” Yet again this supports that idea that a woman is supposed to attract a man with her looks but also goes further to state that the power available to women is determined by her sexual nature in order to gain the achievement of being the women he wants. “Gi mi straight up pussy cause she know say gangsta no saps, it’s a fucking affair gal siddung pon mi cocky like chair,” this brings out the motion of objectification of women. In the last lines, “Wan mek a run but mi cab inna de air, Fling her pon de ground and put she foot inna de air” the action of taking control mentined clearly above eliminates the notion of respect of men towards women in this dyadic relation, which highlights women subordinate and inferior position.