What's That Smell In The Kitchen

It uses phrases like, 'grow up to be a woman', and 'be helpless like my mother', and that may seem like it is actually promoting a patriarchal society. However, that is just how the speaker is seeing things. The next few lines are the ones that truly show the feminism at this part of the poem. 'I didn't realize the kind of guts it often took for her to just keep standing where she was.' This line seems to contradict the speakers earlier words of her mother being helpless. However, that is the point. Choosing the word helpless but then contradicting that word with 'the kind of guts it often took' shows the reader that the speakers mother is strong because she is seen as helpless. She is looked down upon by others, including her own daughter, but has the guts to keep on

The first stanza opens with a bullet flying through the air. The bullet hits a spider web and tears it: “battle rent a cobweb” (1). This opening line creates the backdrop for the poem. In the middle of a field, some foreign entity is shooting bullets to determine the range. The speaker of this poem, which does not have a gender, is a witness to this practice. The bullet continues its trajectory and cuts a flower. The speaker then says, “Before it [bullet] stained a single human breast.”, this line alludes to the violence that is sure to follow the practice of

Greenberg is so clever with the use of verbal irony throughout the poem. The wife is really being sarcastic to her husband, in an attempt to reveal her desires that are evidently ignored. The main line that triggered my understanding was, "Not strong, not proud, not just, not provident, my lover would blame me for his heart's distress, which you would never think to do" (630). Once again, I initially thought she was complimenting her husband and showing him great respect. This strong, proud, just and provident man seemed perfect. However, the choice of words "...my lover would blame me for his heart's distress..." is what enlightened my thinking (630). The wife wanted to be so important to her husband that she would be the only thing that causes him distress. She actually resents this prideful man who seems to make everything else more important that her.

This poem by Charlotte Mew tells a story in which a farmer marries a very young girl who could not be less ready to marry. The maid in this poem is abused throughout the poem by her so called husband who does not treat her even as a human. Her marriage arranged at a young age the girl is forced into adult duties and actions much too early. This cause many issues to her mental health and her trust towards other humans. The farmer, as the narrator, uses several similes throughout the poem comparing the maid to a rabbit. This shows how he views her and why he treats her like he does in the poem. The six uneven stanzas allows Mew to express her intentions not limited to another's style. This allows for amazing line placement throughout the poem, and the only form she follows throughout the poem is iambic tetrameter. There is no rhyme scheme allowing Mew to have freedom like the girl so much desires. In “The Farmer’s Bride”, Charlotte Mew uses irregular rhyme and form with iambic tetrameter, as well as thorough imagery and comparison to show the broken marriage in this poem.

The author uses imagery in the poem to make the experience of this one woman stand out vividly. The first lines of the poem say "she saw diapers steaming on the line / a doll slumped behind the door." The phrase "steaming on the line" is especially strong, making me

 Marge Piercy is an American novelist, essayist, and poet best known for writing with a trademark feminist slant. In "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" Marge Piercy explores the way women are sometimes held in low esteem by men through the eyes of a tired housewife who has had it with her monotonous day- to-day duties. In this poem, it is not stated that the speaker is a homemaker, but the reader is told about one woman in particular who is meant to express the feelings of women as a whole. The author conveys this central idea through imagery, figurative language, and devices of sound.

She enforces this idea onto the narrator tirelessly regardless of actually considering her daughter’s outlook of the mother’s idea. This shows that the narrator’s mother has taken another extreme to be too involved and controlling her life. Next, is the time and age the speaker and narrator are from the poem, “Hanging Fire”, and the story, “Two kinds”, are currently in. For instance, in Lorde’s poem, the speaker says she is fourteen, and she has various ordeals to do. Due to constant pressure and confusion and the lonesome environment she lives in, she questions whether she would come out of it alive and how would people finally understand her. This depicts that the speaker is currently a teenage girl who shall live the moment to then eventually confront and solve her

The woman in the poem shows us the anger she is feeling is directed at her husband. The

This one Stanza poem allows the poem to be fast pace and unhindered with long drawn out accounts of abuse. The poem is not any less shocking however, to the contrary. The pace of this poem is fast and builds momentum as the words tumble out. The speaker recalls the terror of a child and the eventual hate and resentment of an adult “…how I am one fourth him, a brutal man with a hole for an eye and one fourth her, a woman who protected no one”(19) Here it becomes evident that the reader feels bitterness to the Grandmother also. It is not merely a hatred for men that we see but resentment towards a woman too, “and Grandma had never once taken anyone’s side against him”(19). According to Gaffery, this is a feeling that is harbored deep with Olds work (120).

In each of these poems, the female characters are constantly being drained of both their joy and their spirit by men whose priority is oppressing those inferior to them. The dame kept to herself and did no harm, yet the Lord of the castle still strived to make her feel his pain driving her to her deathbed “Three weeks did she languish, then died broken-hearted”(Robinson 82). After Stephen left Martha for another maid she is left with an aching heart, deprived of all happiness and left alone to deal with her sorrow “She was with child, and she was mad;

This poem was set in Renaissance Italy and women were denied all political rights and considered legally subject to their husbands. Women of all classes were expected to perform, first and foremost, the duties of housewife: sewing, cooking, and entertaining, among others. It is obvious from the historical context that Browning’s poem was

Although this concept is a good one, the narrator’s credibility is questioned because she assumes she is "out of mind" or insane. The tone of the poem is proud. This is clear in the last stanza when it appears to be just as she will be executed. She says, "A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind."

“What’s that Smell in The Kitchen?” was written by Marge Piercy during the feminist movement in 1976. The poem is about women in the United States that are being mistreated in society. Throughout the poem, it describes how women in America react to the arrogant nature of men towards females. Marge Piercy wrote this poem during the feminist movements that occurred in the 1960’s and 70’s. Women were being treated unfairly, and weren’t given the same amount of opportunities as men

From the beginning of the poem, the speaker reveals a subconscious feeling of shame stemming from the judgement she receives from society. The first stanza of the poem serves as a rebuttal to women of society. The speaker recalls the times women had suggested to her to get a day job and to this, she rebuts, “Right. And minimum wage,/ and varicose veins,” (6-7). The tone that the speaker conveys when she responds “right” is one of sarcasm. this suggests that the speaker feels under attack by society and especially the women in it. She points out the negatives of what women call an ordinary job in order to defend herself. She denotes validity and importance of these other jobs just to make it easier for her to justify what she does. Even

The poem is written as one large stanza but has a section at the end (lines 12 though 14) that is indented that acts as a separation of a stanza. I feel that the author did not make it a completely new stanza because it relates to the rest of the poem and ties up the overall meaning. In the poem lines 1 through 8 the narrator is explaining though sarcasm how women are ignorant about the actual efforts of their husbands in the war. Then line 9 through 11 is spent explaining how visually, physically, and mentally it is on the battlefield. Then lines 12 through 14 are indented like a spate stanza to visually let the reader see that it is still connected to the text but serves a different purpose. The last stanza (or indented section) is line 12 through 14 and says. “O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send to your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud” offering contrast that sums up the whole meaning of the poem, that women are doing domesticated things not truly worrying about their husbands, sons, brothers… due to their ignorance of warfare while the men are literally fighting for their lives. The title of the poem, “Glory of Women” is to be understood as sarcasm. The title initially makes the reader think that the poem is going to be about how glorious women are and