Gwen Harwood is a well renowned poet for her poems written during the 1950’s-90’s as she explores the realm of universal human concerns which are the source of her poetic inspiration, these include; love, friendship and memory. Today these concerns are still relevant in our society and are what connects us to each other and immortalises our sprit. Throughout many of Harwood poems she exposes her life in writing to create an intimate relationship with the paper. These documents create a personal account of the struggles and the love a woman feels in moments in changing times. This becomes evident in Harwood’s interpretation of marriage, motherhood and love. She uses symbolism and tone to hint to the undelaying meaning of the poems and the importance of them to her. Harwood uses poetry to document her experiences and observations of marriage. She opens her life to the reader as she shares personal and intimate reflections on her choices in life. By this Harwood is able to re-create a vivid image of a life of a married lady during the 1940’s. Gwen Harwood was married during the year 1945 and moved with her husband, William Harwood, to Tasmania and away from her beloved childhood home in Brisbane. This change in Harwood’s life was a struggle as she did not completely agree to the move that will forever be thought of negatively. Harwood’s struggle of acceptance of her new life was evident in her poem “Iris”. In the poem Harwood looks at the positives and negatives of a marital relationship. Harwood uses the word ‘…singularity…’ to describe her relationship, this word makes the point that her and her husband have become one unit in which they walk through life and experience the good and the bad together. As well as having positive co... ... middle of paper ... ...expressed such as in, ‘An impromptu for Ann Jennings’. In this poem Harwood recalls the times that she and a friend experienced during motherhood. She talks of beautiful memories, ‘Nursing…by huge fires of wattle…’ and ends the poem with, ‘to know; our children walk the earth.’ This line is very powerful in that it expresses Harwood’s sheer joy and gratefulness she has for having children and for having a friend to help her along the way. This line becomes imbedded in her audience as its great strength of structure, it opens a window in which some women or mothers can relate and share an un-dividing connection to Harwood’s poems. Throughout a collection of Gwen Harwood’s poems is the exploration of women during the 1950’s-90’s and their roles in society as it evolved in its acceptance of allowing a woman equal say in her identity. (struggling to end this essay)
The Harwood’s poem, ‘Boxing Day’ (2003), is centred on a mother, who is cleaning up after her children the day following Christmas. The mother figure in this poem is represented as a person who is ‘too tired to move’ and in this state, is reflecting on a life of past happiness she once may have enjoyed. In the opening stanza, the mother is portrayed as a traditional 1960’s housewife, ‘framed in the doorway: woman with a broom’, which reads almost as a position that carries a stigma for women being seen as more than just housewives to cook, clean and keep her family happy.
Unlike the other women of Victorian society, Edna is unwilling to suppress her personal identity and desires for the benefit of her family. She begins “to realize her position in the universe as a human being and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (35). Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she...
The poet shows us that her mother did her best, and also was able to
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.
Reading on this topic intertextually allows the concept to be explored in greater depth, reinforcing the concept to readers, whilst appealing to different audiences through the different forms of poetry. Rosemary Dobson’s poems,
Throughout history, the story of womankind has evolved from struggles to achievements, while some aspects of the lives of women have never changed. Poet Dorianne Laux writes about the female condition, and women’s desire to be married and to have a home and children. She also seems to identify through her poetry with the idea that women tend to idealize the concept of marriage and settling down and she uses her poetry to reach out to the reader who may have similar idyllic views of marriage or the married lifestyle. Though Dorianne Laux’s poem “Bird” reads very simply, it is actually a metaphor for an aspect of this female condition.
Her poetry is greatly informed by her childhood in hockey town Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with that environmental aesthetic often forming the backdrop to her stories of poverty, alcoholism, and the natural world. As a prairie girl myself, it’s easy for me to picture the agricultural landscapes and rustic animals described in poems such as “Inventing the Hawk”. Her authorial voice is wistful yet confessional, a voice that looks back fondly, but not blind to the issues of the past. Sex is also a recurring theme of her work, and the intimacies of her relationship with her husband Patrick Lane are a common topic of her work. One of her poems, “Watching My Lover”, tells of Lane bathing his dying mother, the mother’s scent lingering "so everyone who lies with him / will know he’s still / his mother’s son". Animals from cats to horses feature heavily in her work, tying in once again to her love of nature.
The short story, “Astronomer’s Wife,” by Kay Boyle is one of perseverance and change. Mrs. Ames, because of neglect from her husband, becomes an emotionless and almost childlike woman. As a result, Mrs. Ames, much like John Milton in his poem, “When I consider how my light is spent” (974), is in darkness, unaware of the reality and truth of the outside world. However, the plumber who is trying to repair leaking pipes in her house, starts by repairing the leaking pipes in her heart. He helps her realize that the life she is living is not a fulfilling one. In short, to Mrs. Ames, “[…] life is an open sea, she sought to explain in sorrow, and to survive women cling to the floating debris on the tide” (Boyle 59). Similarly, in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” the mother is also “cling[ing] to floating debris” (Boyle 59). She is trying to hold on to her old life, the one in which she is socially better than blacks and other women. But, like Milton and Mrs. Ames, she is soon forced to see the world in a new perspective. Thus, a new life is created for Mrs. Ames and the mother after their epiphanies, with the realization of a new world, one in which hard work and understanding can lead to change in one’s life and of one’s identity.
Poetry Intertextual The anthology “Lines to Time” includes a wide range of poems written by a selection of poets. What makes “Line to Time” interesting and enjoyable to read is the variety of topics and treatments the poets use to make their poetry effective. The range of poets featured in “Lines to Time” use a variety of poetic devices and writer’s techniques such as symbolism, imagery, alliteration, onomatopoeia, tone, metaphors and humour, to effectively construct an evocative poem. Symbolism and imagery plays a large role in Gwen Harwood’s poems “Suburban Sonnet”, “Suburban Sonnet: Boxing Day” and “Father and Child”.
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
The writing I have chosen is the journal entries of Hannah Tinti’s “Home Sweet Home,” Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper.” I have selected these writings for the main focus of these writing is about the female protagonists and their mental war to be liberated from their oppressive husbands. In “Home Sweet Home,” the wife sees her husband having a malicious affair while she is taking care of his child born out of wedlock that she now loves and will seek vengeance by committing a double murder. In “The Story of an Hour,” the wife, with a heart condition, turned widow is distraught at the news of her late husband passing, but she then feels freedom in starting a new life without her husband
Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print. The. Bailey, Carol. "
As a woman born in the early 17th century, Anne Bradstreet was naturally destined to a life lived underneath the shadow of the men around her, as were most women of that era; however, Bradstreet had been born into a family that supported her education and learning. While at first glance Bradstreet’s work seems to portray a woman who is highly self-deprecating, her writing style and knowledge of literature and culture beg to differ. In the poem, “The Prologue,” Bradstreet uses literary devices and figurative language to combat the sea of masculine voices surrounding the women of that day. Throughout “The Prologue,” Bradstreet shows a mastery of figurative language and literary devices that contrasts her claims of inferiority, creating a poem that dares to ask for some small recognition of women writers as a whole.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
In conclusion, David Lodge managed to embody the concrete term of feminism. Through the character of Robyn Penrose, he creates the breakup of the traditional Victorian image of woman.“ `There are lots of things I wouldn 't do. I wouldn 't work in a factory. I wouldn 't work in a bank. I wouldn 't be a housewife. When I think of most people 's lives, especially women 's lives, I don 't know how they bear it. ' `Someone has to do those jobs, ' said Vic. `That 's what 's so depressing. ' ”(Lodge