Analysis Of Linda Hull's Poem 'Night Waitress'

943 Words2 Pages

The Lonely Gal Poverty is often taxing to one’s life in multiple ways, some of which include mind taxation, stress taxation, emotional taxation and of course money taxation. Mother Theresa once said “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty”. How would you find time to look for the one that would make you feel special and wanted, while having to live in situation which doesn’t forgive free time? “Night Waitress” by Linda Hull is poem that looks at daily life of a waitress who struggles to answer just that question. The narrator of the poem is a night waitress, which most likely means she is struggling financially. She has a Slavic heritage, which is revealed to us through this line, “It’s my mother’s Slavic …show more content…

A calm arrival could point to the emptiness of her room, emptiness in terms of view or vibe. Everything in its place could also point to a boring life, there’s nothing new or changed in her room just like in her life. Her room is a pretty accurate depiction of her current situation. “The calendar on my wall predicts no disaster only another white square waiting to be filled like the desire that fills jail cells.” (Hull 83, 32-36) This line is another pointer to the desire of something new in her life. She wants to fill in her empty calendar, she wants change and nothing seems to be allowing it. The desire that fills jail is also a good line. The most common misconception is that all people in jail just want freedom but that is not accurate. Most people in jail just want something to do, they have already accepted the situation they are in, but are tired of doing the same thing every day just like she is. As you read deeper in the poem, she says, “When I walk out of here in the morning my mouth is bitter with sleeplessness. Men surge to the factories and I am too tired.” (Hull 83, line 39-42) The shift the waitress holds is one where her nights are spent awake, and her days are spent asleep. The time that she could have interacting with men is hindered highly by her current situation. She finishes the poem with “I’m fading in the morning’s insinuations collecting in the crevices of buildings in the wrinkles, in every fault of this frail machine”. (Hull 84, line 45-49) At the end, the narrator decides to just accept her current situation; she knows that her mornings will be spent resting and she believes that she doesn’t have the beauty or energy to find the love she

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of The Poem Immigrants At Central Station

    462 Words  | 1 Pages

    “Immigrants at central station, 1951”, this poem is about the Skrzynecki family waiting to depart on a train at central station to a migrant. The first stanza describes the time and the atmosphere of the where the family were the family is situated. The poem begins by capturing a brief moment in time from the whistle declaring its arrival to the scene of leaving with it. “It was sad to hear the train’s whistle this morning” these words provoke sadness where it usually brings joy. This tell us that the Skrzynecki family were sad due to the fact that they were about to travel to the unknown. “All night it had rained.” The imagery in the first stanza is depressing, the poems tone here is sad. As the poem goes on it says, “But we ate it all” the metaphor here is used for positiveness. No matter how depressed they were they still enjoyed it. The second stanza is about

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Marie Howe's Poem 'What The Living Do'

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    She starts her poem by addressing her dead brother Johnny and gives a series of complaints about the condition of her kitchen. Just like what happens to many people, she recounts how they hesitate to undertake their responsibilities and blame them on other people or circumstances. She gives the ordinary excuses of a lazy person, accusing the presence of the mess in her kitchen rather than her indolence. She claims the crusty dishes have piled up while it is she or her guests piled them in the sink. She expects the plumber to repair the drainage although she didn't even call him. She would probably have a better kitchen if she called the plumber and then washed the dirty dishes. Instead of taking action, she stands, watches, and then blames everything else apart from herself. She recounts that is the ordinary thing that people do, and before she could solve her kitchen mess she drifts to another distraction and notices that it's already winter. Ideally, people will find tons of distraction but will not find time to accomplish their

    Read More

  • Drifters Poem Analysis

    422 Words  | 1 Pages

    Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Susan Ludvigson's Poem 'Nighthawks'

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Nighthawks" (1942), a famous painting from Edward Hopper, has been the subject of many poems. Most of the poems attempt to tell the story of the four people painted in the scene. The scene portrays a diner during the night or early morning before the sun comes up, and it is viewed outside on a dark street as someone is looking in. There is nothing threatening about this scene and it suggests there is no danger around the corner; it gives the people in this painting a kind of serenity. The painting is an oil and canvas work and set in the 1930’s or 1940’s. I can tell by the diner’s architecture, clothing, hairstyles and hats of the customers, also by the five-cent cigar sign. This diner looks like it should be

    Read More

  • Singapore, Mary Mann's 'Singapore And What Work Is'

    1398 Words  | 3 Pages

    Life is not always easy, at some point, people struggle in their life. People who are in the lower class have to struggle for a job every day and people who are in upper class also have their own problems to deal with. These ideas are very clear in Mary Oliver’s “Singapore”, Philip Schultz’s “Greed” and Philip Levine “What Work Is”. In "Singapore" a woman is likely lower class because she works at the airport and her job is to clean the bathroom. In both “Greed” and “What Work Is”, the speakers make the same conclusion about the struggle in the lower class. “Greed” furthermore discusses how Hispanics get a job first before whites and blacks because they take lower wages. All three poems deal with class in term of the society. The shared idea

    Read More

  • The Colonel Poem Analysis

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    Currently in the United States, many of us are afraid of the future. There have been many recent events that have stirred up fear in this country, especially tensions regarding human rights. In Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel,” the speaker tells us her story of when she had to deal with the mistreatment of others. The speaker is telling us her story of meeting the colonel to show us the horrible things that have happened in the fight for justice and to encourage us to speak up. She tells us this story because she does not want others to end up the way that the ears did. The speaker wants us to stay strong and fight for justice when we begin to live in a state of constant fear.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Connie Clare's Poem 'Communications Class'

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker is posing herself as a Cree student in school who is being silently ostracized. The student hates the education system, as she thinks it is dull and tedious, and the teachers have no faith in her intellect. However, she does not stop at her frustration, as, in the poem we see a certain turn-around: she is sick of playing dead, and as a result, she makes a firm decision to push for change. In the poem “Communications Class,” Connie Fife shows through form and school imagery, the frustrating experience of ostracization in school, but also the resilience a student can exhibit against it.

    Read More

  • Loneliness in Of Mice of Men by John Stienbeck

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” - Mother Teresa

    Read More

  • Pendulum Analysis

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the next lines “Just come back from the club” someone has come to her place to visit her, this person maybe a friend or family came at random. “I can 't hear her breathing.” When hearing someone breathing this could mean that the person is probably sobbing, he does not why but he can sense something is out of place not just from the sobbing but sometimes we can feel when something bad is going to happen or is happening “Something doesn 't seem right.” He then realize that this person was attacked and her perpetrator is looking for a way to hurt her more “Killer in the hallway” He knows that there is not time and he needs to help her before her attacker gets to her and hurts her more or even kill her. “We 're living on a set time” sometimes there is not time to think too much about our actions, we need to act before is to late, sometimes we just need to take action “We gotta get out, Go far away” It is our life and we need to do something about it even if it seems like a mission

    Read More

  • Poem Analysis Of 'The Colonel' By Carolyn Forche

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Carolyn Forche’s “The Colonel” discusses the lack of value towards human life by totalitarian government and the United States’ stake in investigating these powers and challenging them. The speaker in this poem recounts his experience meeting the colonel to show the audience both the amount of presence of the United States in this foreign setting and the Colonel’s lack of regard toward human rights. Figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, and symbols, as well as the speaker’s first-person point of view descriptions reveal her experiences in El Salvador with a cruel military government. These elements in Forche’s poem successfully convey themes of oppression and cruelty, as well as heavy

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper Madness Analysis

    877 Words  | 2 Pages

    As she spends more and more time isolated in her bedroom, with nothing else to occupy her mind, she gradually become fixated on the dreadful patterns of the paper and instantly foresee something else: the narrator eventually see a “strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous design”(77). The narrator’s bedroom being a prison becomes more literal as from figurative when the loneliness and social negation intensifies her need for an escape from the pre-set nature of conduct created specifically for her (a mentally depressed and unwell women) by the people in her life especially by John. Throughout the story, the narrator’s psychological breakdown goes from a typical depressed mind and lacked awareness of identity, to a complete madness and reversed sense of self-esteem. She gradually changes the place she has in the physical world and fights back the social rejection she is facing by turning away from reality in exchange for a world where she has total control and can act according to her own will. The author uses the yellow wallpaper as a symbol for representing the phases of the narrator’s gradual deteriorating

    Read More

  • Poem Analysis: Saturday's Child By Countee Cullen

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some people are born into this world without as many chances to get a better position in life. This can affect the people born into a lower class for the entirety of their life. In the poem “Saturday’s Child,” Countee Cullen uses imagery, personification, and similes to suggest the differences between people that are born into poverty and those that are born into an upper class part of society. Throughout this poem Cullen speaks about how the different social classes affect people; he does this with a pessimistic tone throughout the entirety of the poem.

    Read More

  • Lynda Hull's Night Waitress

    509 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Lynda Hull’s poem “Night Waitress,” a women describes her feelings while she covers her usual night shift at a diner. There is a definite struggle within the speaker. The first struggle the speaker leads the reader to is that she is not very religious. The speaker addresses her mother saying “praying to her god of sorrow and visions who’s not here tonight…”(6-8). The reader gets a sense that the speaker is also rather lonely. The speaker address a man in the diner who catches her eye. She then explains to the readers that she wouldn’t mind letting him touch her. However, it seems as though the man st the jukebox who the speaker notices is looking for something more serious. The songs of “risky”(17-18) love he plays on the jukebox do not please her. The poet Lynda Hull gives the speaker a sense of hope for what she longs for. The speaker seems to be happy however it seems she also has a struggle with the way she looks. She speaks about countless body parts, her face being the most important. Within the first lines she says, “I’m telling myself my face has character, not beauty” (3-4). Readers will get a sense that the speaker seems to be reserved in public in hopes that someone will

    Read More

  • Analyzing Patty's Poem

    451 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the world of teenagers everything seems to come and pass by so quickly. For instance the beginning of senior year. In Spite of being happy and excited were also generally nervous and anxious to see what our future holds. As senior year comes to an end, It then becomes as temporary as the summer sun but also the boundary of our life before we enter adulthood. Even then our future is still undefined.

    Read More

  • Penelope Shuttle's Poem 'In The Kitchen'

    470 Words  | 1 Pages

    Shuttle was able to find comfort in things she probably didn’t even care about before the loss of her husband. This is also the purpose of the poem, Shuttle turned to poetry to safely release her emotions and share with the world how she was mourning with the loss of her husband. The author’s relationship between the setting and her poem is quite unique as well. I’ve never come across a poem where the author finds comfort in things you would find around the kitchen. This poem does depict society in a way. It comes to show how lonely a person can feel despite being in a world filled with billions of people. However, I am still unclear as to why she found comfort in the kitchen, she could have chosen the living room or any other room but she didn’t. This may be tied to the fact that women are often portrayed as people who cook and clean and that the kitchen is the heart of the house, or simply because it was the room filled with the most memories. Overall, my favorite line of the poem is “I am trying to love the world” I feel that when people go through a hard moment in their lives, they are often quick to blame the problem on the world and hate it right away, but Shuttle is staying strong and is trying to be thankful that at least she was given the opportunity to live and experience things in life that some people often don’t

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Linda Hull's Poem 'Night Waitress'

Open Document