What Is The Theme Of Morning Song By Ted Plath

Louise Halfe’s “Body Politics” challenges the qualities and behaviour of the idealized feminine woman by contrasting the stereotypical “city woman” with a more masculine “real woman.” The poem’s speaker describes her mother’s opinion of what it means to be a real woman, which is seen through “Mama said.” Throughout the poem, the speaker uses vivid imagery to create a stark contrast between the idealized feminine “city woman” and a “real woman” who does not conform to the feminine gender norm. To begin with, the title of the poem itself can be viewed as an obvious critique of the feminine ideal. By definition a body politic is a group of people “considered as a collective unit” (Merriam-Webster). This is significant because in Butler’s theory, she emphasizes that a person’s gender can vary depending on a given situation, and therefore women cannot be grouped together and defined exclusively by their feminine qualities. Instead, she argues that women should be viewed as individuals capable of possessing both masculine and feminine behaviour. This belief relates directly to the poem’s title, as Halfe is clearly making a statement on the manner in which patriarchal societies expect women to conform to a singular feminine ideal. Moreover, it illustrates how women’s bodies become a political site for the masculinist culture to impose feminine gender on. With consideration to the title’s reference to a homogeneous group of women, it is interesting that stanzas two through four all

The paper deals with the issue of Marital Discord in the novels of Margaret Drabble, one of the most significant contemporary British women novelists. For the purpose of analysis, I will look at earliernovels of Drabble like A Summer Bird Cage (1963), The Garrick Year (1964) and the Millstone (1965) which are popularly known as an early “trio”. All the three novelscentreprimarily round intelligent female protagonists struggling to search out their own “identity” within the class structure of twentieth century England – a class structure that strictly follows the “patriarchal” norms and values. And one of the major thematic concerns in these threeis the internal struggle or conflict in the mind of blooming hearts – which in turn becomes the cause of conjugal disharmony. A woman undergoes sufferings, particularly because she is

Gwen Harwood’s poetry is very powerful for its ability to question the social conventions of its time, positioning the reader to see things in new ways. During the 1960’s, a wave of feminism swept across Australian society, challenging the dominant patriarchal ideologies of the time. Gwen Harwood’s poems ‘Burning Sappho’ and ‘Suburban Sonnet’ are two texts that challenge the dominant image of the happy, gentle, but ultimately subservient housewife. Instead, ‘Burning Sappho’ is powerful in constructing the mother as violent to reject the restraints placed on her by society, whilst Suburban Sonnet addresses the mental impact of the female gender’s confinement to the maternal and domestic sphere. Harwood employs a range of language and

Patriarchal culture has dominated society throughout history. Males have control in many aspects of life and women have continued to fight for equal rights in society. There are many ways women have contributed to the fight for equality; some more physical and other less abrasive. Education and Literature gave the voice to a few women in a male-centered world. Poet Lady Mary Wroth captures the injustices experienced by women in the feminine narrative of Sonnet 9 from her collection of sonnets, songs, and lyrics entitled 'Pamphilia to Amphilantus. In this poem, Wroth explores the thoughts of elite women in the 1700s and uses aspects of her own cultural and historic circumstance to convey the theme of a religious patriarchal society.

There are many hard jobs in the world. One of the hardest jobs is being a mother. In Rita Dove’s Daystar, we watch as a mother of two struggles to find a moment of solace in the chaotic world that is mothering. In this lyric poem, we find evidence of double entendre, thick imagery, and even some sarcasm. We watch as the mother seeks for a moment where she is “nothing” and nothing can bother her (Dove 21). We even see her achieve this moment of “pure nothing” where she is sat outback, watching the crickets, or the leaves, or the back of her eyelids (7-11, 22). It seems the weight of raising her children without her husband’s assistance is beginning to weigh down on her, and her spirit. In a patriarchal world we can understand how the father would be the one who was off at work, where the mother is the one who is to stay home with the children. This is a system that has been set in place for centuries. Due to the time in which this poem was written, 1986, we feel a sense of dissatisfaction and resentment from the mother about the way the things in her life have turned out. She may feel as though it is not fair for her husband to be the one who gets to leave to go to work all day while she is left to take care of their children. She may also not even realize this is how she feels. Due to the second wave of feminism, we can get a sense that she is unhappy with the role that’s been given to her, as

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

Many great literary and artistic geniuses have been troubled with deep melancholy and phrenic illness. Anne Sexton is an example of a poet with such quandaries who utilized her personal despair to inspire her poetic works. Sexton’s raw material on the inequality of women in a flawed society has sprouted an uproar for change.

It is impossible to discuss the role of women in literature without mentioning the influence of feminism. The later in the timeline one reads, the more prominent it becomes. Each new wave of feminism brings with it its own goals, yet it also continues to strive for some of the same goals as past generations because not everything is accomplished all at once. Although “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall and “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown, are two starkly different texts that strongly reflect the feminist eras in which they were written, they have some similarities as well.

Introduction: Conflicting perspectives are different points of view expressed and influenced by ones context and values. “Birthday Letters” by Ted Hughes is an anthology of poems challenging the accusation that he was responsible for his wife, Sylvia Plath’s death. The three poems The Minotaur, Your Paris, and Red are an insight into Hughes justification of the death of Plath using a very subjective and emotive poetic form. The poems possess many deliberate techniques such as extended metaphors, connotations, diction and juxtaposition to encourage the audience to accept his argument that he was not the one to blame for this world renown tragedy. The poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath also displays conflicting perspectives of the

Constructed in free verse, “The Applicant” involves a narrator who talks to an unknown male character who is “applying” to be the husband of an ideal woman. The woman is ideal in the sense that she is subservient and conforming to the standards set for women in the society during the 1960s, the decade in which this poem was written. The poem pans out in parallel with her demolishing marriage as well as the feeling of imprisonment that is secreted from this poem through the narrator’s passive-aggressive demanding tone. The tone of this poem feeds the reader’s understanding of marriage as an institution rather than a viaduct of raw human emotions. The poem initially unravels in an interview-manner, “First, are you our sort of person? (1)”. The first two stanzas represent the male as the applicant and reveal that his application is for a wife who fulfills society’s expectations. Plath delivers the idea of an incomplete, imperfect man through a peculiar usage of false appendages. The poem flows as Plath connects the male figure with female body parts, such as “rubber breasts” (5), in order to “retrieve the female body, particularly the female breast, from objectification by the male gaze” (641) as Diane Middlebrook puts it in her essay, “What Was Confessional Poetry?”. Here, Plath already secretes the idea of

In her famous poem, Plath reveals the subordination of women to men in marriage. In her third stanza, the words,

Through this voice, the author captures the readers’ sympathies and furthers their understanding of injustice against women.

Contrastingly, Plath uses the metaphor of her partner being a vampire to further convey the obsession she has with her fathers’ control. Plath’s partner ‘said he was you’, and she uses the metaphor of vampire in order to convey how her partner, and by extension her father, drained her of life driving her to suicide. Plath shows the inner conflict she faces about the absence of her father through the pronouns used. As Daddy progresses, the pronoun ‘you’ is more frequently used which has the effect of accusing her father of leaving her. As Plath’s desire to be controlled is shown throughout her poems, the only thing that she can maintain is the five line structure of her stanzas. This rigid following of the traditional poetic conventions appeals to her conservative audience. Both Plath and Winehouse convey in their poems how their control over their selves is limited.

Continuing with the theme of human suffering, another of Plath’s most important ideas is that throughout history, women have been oppressed. Plath expresses this idea in many of her texts such as, Daddy, Lady Lazarus, Never Try to Trick Me with a Kiss, Munich Mannequins and many more. One of Plath’s most effective and commonly used techniques used to express this idea is historical and religious allusion. Specifically, in her 1963 poem Daddy, the use of historical allusion can be seen throughout the entirety of the text. Plath demonstrates the fear and oppression she experienced with her father by writing “I think I may well be a Jew”. This is historically contextual as Plath’s father was a German immigrant and by referring to herself as a

Being silenced is the basic of the story that keeps it moving along with the social and gender issues that impact violence of patriarchal domination and women being submissive. This essay will present a powerful archetypical narrative topic in Ovid’s Metamorphoses such as rape, silencing and the complete erasure of feminine in Alice Walker’s Color Purple Novel. The reader will understand the significance of the subject matter under the discussion of a system of society called “Patriarchy”, that does not allow the expression of both the masculinity and feminism. By providing textual evidence that withdraws from the violence of patriarchal domination and submissive, and the comparison of the fate of Philomela to that of young Celie.