Alice DunbarNelson's poem, I Sit and Sew Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Alice DunbarNelsons poem, I ride and Sew - Essay ExampleLike the tasks of sewing, washing, cooking, etc., the rhyming couplets of a poem echo the scheme of tasks that a cleaning woman must perform day in and day out, without reprieve. The refrain, although it is identical each time, does non rhyme with whatsoever other line or exist as part of a couplet. This seems to indicate that although it is a repeat emotion that the narrator feels very often, it is nevertheless not repetitive like the chores she has to do. Its repetition instead indicates that it is a powerful emotion that she feels again and again, an emotion that does not find an outlet and remains bottled up privileged her.The first stanza contains a striking juxtaposition of the useless task of sewing with the tasks that men have to perform, which argon instilled with grandeur and dignity, and are located in the public/political sphere, whereas the woman is confined to the domestic/ ain sphere of existenceThe lives of men are licked out against a grandiose backdrop, suggested by lyric poem such as panoply, military, and grim-faced. In contrast, the woman is obviously relegated ton being one of the lesser souls who cannot enroll in the all-important tasks of war and politics. The al-Quran pageant in stanza two may be compared with the word panoply in the first stanza. While the men are out creating history, women seem to be destined to play pre-determined roles in a pageant or masquerade which does not allow them to determine their own identities, merely rather to passively sit back and accept the roles that a patriarchal agendas has created from them they are defined by someone elses ideal of what they should be like.The first stanza also indicates that womens tasks are full of passivity. The verbs that are used to appoint womens actions - sit, sew, aches, etc - are all passive verbs that can be performed while staying in the same position. By contrast, the martial tread of men suggests t hat they are constantly moving forward. They are active while women are passive. Curiously, the fashion of men is described in considerable detail - their faces are grim and their eyes are stern. The woman, contrastingly, is not described at all in terms of her facial expression. It is as if the poet wants to present an external cerebration of men, and an internalized portrait of a womans thoughts and actions. It is clear that this is a womans monologue, and that she is only capable of seeing herself as a fragmental creature it is only her hands that are described, and only in terms of being tired. This stanza opens and closes with the refrain, suggesting that the womans life is special on every side by reminders that she is supposed to remain passive. The opening lines of the next stanza suggest a burst of passion when the woman says fervently that her heart aches with desire, but this fire has already been quenched by the but that immediately precedes it in the last lines of th e previous stanza, reminding her that her task is to sit and sew, to remain passive and obedient. In the second stanza, the tone changes quite dramatically. Whereas the first stanza describes the actions of men in terms of a grand and