Rita Dove Daystar Analysis

In exploring this poem the tone of the opening line – “Abortions will not let you forget” – can be viewed as regretful and as offering a kind of warning. As we move through the poem the tone of line four, might be called literally imaginative, as she say; “The singers and workers that never handled the air”. While in lines 5-6 the tone seems at first brutally honest and realistic and then affectionate and realistic. As she continues to lines 7-10, as well as in many lines of this poem, the mother expresses herself as a person who is fully familiar with all the small, subtle realities of parenting. She even expresses her attitudes toward her abortions even more complex.

Linda Pastan’s poem Marks is a short narrative many women will be able to identify with, as it addresses the tasks by which a stay at home mother is measured. Reduced to a mere extension of her “work,” or family, the female narrator describes in detail not only the domesticity that rules her life, but also the fact that her family has the audacity to assign grades to her efforts. Her husband instrumentalizes her by treating her not as a partner, but as a tool to satisfy his need for to be clothed and fed. He also exhibits fungibility over her in that she is interchangeable with other woman, rather than being her own unique person in the relationship. Finally, he grades his wife even on her performance in the bedroom, reducing her even further to body, vice an active participant in this most intimate facet of their lives. Fortunately, the wife’s self-esteem remains intact, despite her family’s best efforts to dislodge it. In her feminist poem Marks, Linda Pastan highlights the power a husband has over his wife as he subjects her to instrumentality, fungibility, and reduction to body, yet the woman’s inner strength refuses to bow to their systemic oppression.

In this satirical article, Brady expresses the difference between the roles of women and men in the 1970’s by stating men’s point of view on women and women’s roles in society. Throughout her article, Brady emphasizes the roles of women. For example, women could now “work and...takes care of the children when they are sick”. Comparing the 1880’s to the 1970’s, there has been a big improvement. Many women had jobs outside their home, but still were responsible for most housework and childcare while their husband’s only responsibility in a marriage was to go to work and earn money to support the family. Society’s expectations allowed women to work outside the home to support college education for husbands; however,women had to know how to balance their time between their children and their jobs, making sure that their husbands “cannot miss classes at school.” During the 1970’s, women were still oppressed in many ways and had to follow society's expectations in order to live up to the men’s view of women’s roles in society. Even though society’s expectations of women had improved since The Awakening, most of women’s roles had stayed the same. In the article, Brady specifies how once a husband is “through with school and has a job, [he expects the] wife to quit working and remain at home so that [she] can more fully and completely take

Mayo Angelou explains the reality between struggles and the beauty of overcoming them in her poem called “Woman Work”. This poem is about a mother, preferably, a single mother that has children that she takes care of. The poem starts off by saying, “I’ve got children to tend / The clothes to mend / The floor to mop / The food to shop / Then the chicken to fry / The baby to dry / I got company to feed / The garden to weed / I’ve got shirts to press /

The notion that ordinary, everyday experiences encompass universal emotions of both sadness and delight is central to Gwen Harwood’s anthology of Selected Poems. This Australian poet often uses her personal journey towards self-knowledge and experience of growing up to comment on universal aspects of raw, uncensored life experiences. She aims to convey the idea that motherhood is a difficult experience for many women who resent the way they are forced to abandon their individuality and careers. Harwood also illustrates the sadness in the loss of innocence and regrets in childhood. However, she also reminds the audience of the importance of celebrating the richness and vitality of human life such as the importance and power of women and parenthood. Ultimately the collection also suggests that aspects of both sadness and delight are evident in every human experience.

Many people describe the role as a mother and a wife as something that is to be welcomed, a natural stage for women. However for the narrator, it changed from something seemingly beautiful to “old foul, bad...” Motherhood to her is then what creative women were to other people during the 19th century. Creativity was natural for the narrator, unlike motherhood; it was part of her being. Motherhood however, was a prison of domestic

Harwood revolves this poem around change, through the use of a motherly character she is able to construct a life style that has dramatically changed from free to a fairly constricted. Harwood uses the conversations of two people to get this message across, with the conversation discussing life’s progression with an old lover. “But for the grace of God…” suggests that the ex-lover is somewhat thankful for not ending up as a father figure to these children, as he can see the effect it has taken on her from when he used to know her. “Her clothes are out of date” shows her appearance has altered in the bid to live as a mother, her children are now her identity and that is what she will live to be. This poem is revolved around the negativity of losing yourself through mother-hood and the factors that slowly show that it.

“Daystar” comes from a book of poems written by Dove entitled Thomas and Beulah, which tells both the real and unreal stories of Dove’s maternal grandparents (Stein 64). Unlike Dove, who grew up during a time of women’s rights, her grandmother most likely did not have an admired career as a housewife. In discussing Thomas and Beulah, Stein explains, “It is almost painful to witness Thomas and Beulah, two people clearly devoted to each other, continually misinterpret each other's behavior” (70). Although “Daystar” is not necessarily written from an autobiographical perspective, Dove is using the research of her family and her own experiences to welcome us into the lives of the distressed Beulah.

“Daystar” by Rita Dove is an expressive poem, which centers on the main character, a young mother and wife, who internally struggles with her burdensome, daily duties, which creates a lack of freedom in her world.   Dove’s choice of words lets the reader empathize with her confined life.  In this poem, irony exists for the mere fact that from birth to adulthood the female population is brought up to feel fulfilled by simply becoming a wife and mother; however, this poem describes the monotonous duties and the joyless bond that can be between husband and wife.

For centuries women have not been content with their way of living as a result of the expectations in society. They have had to keep feelings of resentment and misery. Unlike the society we know now where women are more open to speaking about their opposition to societies "rules", women around the 1970's were still not speaking out their feelings. A lot of times women would just swallow their feelings and put up a facade of being happy. In the two poems Daystar and Marks, readers are given an insight of how some women, more precisely mothers, felt with their "jobs" In Marks by Linda Pastan, a woman, both a wife and a mother, explains how she feels in her position in the family.

However, this can be seen as the speaker acknowledging the overwhelmingly true fact of her being dead while her husband lives. The speaker asks her husband not to waste his time honoring her memory or trying to make gestures of love for her when they cannot be received. She also allows herself the freedom to focus on herself and her afterlife. The speaker is revolutionary in her autonomy and her acceptance of the ever-constant change that pervades human existence. Through this poem, Rossetti highlights the emerging feminist movement of the time and provides a stark contrast to the usual male-driven

Daystar by Rita Dove emphasizes gender roles and the expectations society has towards being a mother. It is often believed that mothers should assume responsibility for cooking, cleaning, tending to their demanding children and husbands. The poem illustrates the challenges women endure to live up to society’s expectations to be a fit mother and wife. As seen through the main character mothers have to make sacrifices that often puts everyone else’s happiness before their own. For example, the women in the poem desired to have time to herself but she couldn’t because she had endless chores and children to care for. Not having time to herself made her feel lost and unfulfilled.

In Linda Pastan’s poem “Marks” a woman is speaking about how she feel underappreciated in her family after all the things she does for them. The poem is set up almost as a report card, the things she has to do as a housewife are her subjects, and the responses that she receives from her family are compared to the

Maya Angelou said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” (Wanderlust 1). The relationship a mother has with her child transcends all other relationships in complexity. Maternity largely contributes to the female identity in part because the ability to sexually reproduce is uniquely female. With this ability often comes an unparalleled feeling of responsibility. That is, mothers experience an inherent desire to protect their children from the world and guide them through life. Serving as a child’s protector then transforms a woman’s perspective, or the female gaze. While these protective instincts often arise naturally, they are also reinforced by the ideas society’s perpetuates about motherhood. Globally, women are expected to assume the roles of wives and mothers. The belief that motherhood is somewhat of a requirement assists in the subjugation of women and reinforces a plethora of gendered stereotypes. While some women enjoy the process of childrearing, others feel that having a family comes at an irreparable cost: losing sight of oneself. In response to the polarized views surrounding maternity, several authors have employed different writing techniques to illustrate the mother-child dynamic. Through the examination of three narratives, spanning fiction and non-fiction, one is able to better define maternity and the corresponding female gaze in both symbolic and universal terms.

In this poem “Woman’s Work”, the mother is forced to do household cleaning which represents a domestic life and the impact of gender specific roles. This poem is written in the third person point of view. The speaker is the daughter of a mother who doesn’t work outside, but only inside of the house, and is forced to do household cleaning with her as she hears her friends playing outside in the street. Author Julia Alvarez uses imagery, simile, and alliteration to portray the meaning of the poem that women work harder than men.