Tj Kiefer

Mueller AP

Literature and Composition

2/10/09

“Woman Work”

The attitude in “Woman Work” is quite apparent. It gives off the same feelings and attitudes we all have when it comes to work or something we dislike but know we have to do. There is the immediate attitude of disgust and hatred followed by the over-embellished thoughts of the relief and rest that comes after doing hard work.

The first stanza is where the teller remarks on all of the chores she has to do throughout the day, in almost a list format. Every line has another chore and it seems like there is no rest or break in the middle, she just goes from one task to another. Each line is end stopped which shows that each task is separate and just continually goes into the next after the previous task is complete. Unlike other women during this time period, which seems like a Southern setting due to the cotton and cane referenced, she does not stay contained in the house. Her work takes her outside to do tasks which initially seem to be men’s chores, like picking cotton and cutting sugar cane. This could imply that she is a single mother, which would make her life more stressful and the completion of her jobs even more important. You can feel her growing tired and more weary after each line.

Finally she completes her tasks as the second stanza begins, and she starts to call on nature for relief, as shown in lines like “Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again.” This gives a very refreshing image of a cool mist which is one of the greatest feelings after working hard in the sun. It also has traces of Romantic literature because of all the references to nature and how it helps a person who is tired from working long hours doing chores. Another change in the poem is that the lines in the second through fourth stanzas are now enjambed, instead of end stopped. This ends the “laundry list” feel of the first stanza and helps provide the imagery of the nature references. She also uses apostrophe in the final stanzas, literally calling on nature to aid her, as if the sun and the snowflakes could hear her and come to her help. This shows a sort of delusional state that she is in after all of her hard work and amplifies her need for rest.

The attitude changes from the beginning of the poem and the rest of the poem. The first stanza is much different from stanzas two through four to be exact. The first stanza gives an attitude of dread and determination, shown by the seemingly endless list of chores and how important it is that they are all completed. The second through fourth stanzas provide and attitude of longing for relief and rest, which the teller believes will come from nature, as shown by all of the references to nature and how they can aid a tired person.

Question:

Who is the speaker of this poem? Provide specific examples from the poem to support your ideas.

Answer:

The speaker of this poem seems to be a little child, probably between the ages of 5 and 8.  Those ages seem appropriate because at that point in life a child is making up their own words such as “puddle-wonderful” and “mud-luscious”. Using words like that also imply a child because they love to play in the dirt and mud whereas older children and adults tend to stay away from shenanigans like that. They also refer to the balloon man three times throughout the poem, and as a child I was always in awe of the balloon man, who had the joy of holding wonderful balloons all day. He comments on his friends, but rushes the pronunciation like a child who speaks much too fast would. There are two examples of this, “eddieandbill” and “bettyandisbel”. Finally the child comments on the games that his friends are playing, such as hop-scotch, jump-rope, marbles and piracies.

“I argue with myself a lot lately, I say argue instead of debate because it sometimes turns into silent shouting matches

that end in nothingness and are the least civil things one can experience. I argue about many things, most I cannot

remember ten minutes after I’m done with the whole thing. Recently I’ve been throwing around the topic of religion and

existence. I’ve found I have two very different thought processes, one leaning more toward hope and optimism and the

other completely nihilistic and self-destructive. It’s quite obvious which side is more prominent. This leads to some very

un times, and a bit of desperate struggling. One could say, and a few have that it’s bipolar or “schizophrenic

narcissism”

and it’s quite scary.

I’ve always known there was something wrong with me, but I never knew what. I live with an underlying feeling that

something is a little off. I keep wondering why I hate everyone, including myself. I can’t stand society and live a self

destructive lifestyle. I make choices without knowing the consequences and live with a constant feeling of hatred and anger. I

fail at things that only hurt me to get back at people, I try to run myself into the ground, overload myself with work, school,

homework and other things just to see how much I can take before breaking, it’s like a sick game to me. I’ve spent the last

few years trying to diagnose myself, to find out what’s wrong with me. You might be wondering why I just didn’t go to a

therapist to find that out. I did, and I failed at that too, for no reason I didn’t tell them anything and then just stopped going.

I’ve never had the ability to empathize and only truly care about one or two people.”

“My life is now one big pattern against user and I hate it, everyday is exactly the same, my now realized precious time is split

between school and a full time job. It’s monotony at its finest, which to some of you, after watching my personality for the

past few years seems like it fits me fine. I hate the feeling of being stuck in a loop, where it feels like the future is too far

away, the present is taking far too long, and the past is sprinting away from me. I often get wonder where the past 8 hours

of my life went, even though during that time all I wanted was it to pass. I need something to change, some kind of catalyst

to shatter the world I’m growing so uncomfortable in. I want something to shake it up a bit, and run away laughing at me. I

need my own Tyler Durden. I’m an adrenaline junkie with no fix, a matador waving a lonely red flag with no bull in sight.

Some people live to fight genocide, or find some bandwagon cause like opposing the current government and their

decisions. I currently have no desire to protect the environment, stop AIDS, prevent world hunger or any of the other

million causes people live for. I haven’t found the right one yet”

Tj Kiefer

Mueller

AP Literature and Composition

2/02/09

“Here” Essay

“Here” is a poem about traveling through different environments, it starts in an urban area, moves to a rural area and then heads back into a city. The poem has mainly a darker tone, ranging from solemn and gloomy to callous and cynical. There really isn’t a pleasant word in the entire poem. The end of the poem is much darker than the beginning, which initially gave me a reflective and whimsical tone.

The first stanza begins with the word swerving, which is repeated multiple times throughout the stanza. This gives a rushed feel, where it seems that everything is moving by much too quickly and the second the narrator recognizes the environment his direction quickly changes and he is presented with something entirely new. He “swerves” away from a city, described by its “rich industrial shadows”. The juxtaposition of the words industrial and shadows gives an illusion of towering factories or skyscrapers. After departing the urban area he moves into a field of thistles, where he constantly sees places to stop, where workers idle. These could be stops for a form of public transportation, caring workers to their jobs early in the morning. The final line in the stanza holds the only pleasant word in the poem, the “piled gold clouds” which give an illusion of stacks of comfortable golden clouds that are in the sky in the morning on a perfect day. The reader assumes that the narrator is at a riverbank at the closing of the first stanza because of the “shining gull-marked mud” and the fact that he sees a “widening river”. Seagulls typically are seen in areas like beaches or riverbanks. The words in this stanza that give a solemn or gloomy tone are “harsh” in line 4 and “solitude” in line 5. Solitude is generally a word to describe someone who is isolated or imprisoned by something.

The second stanza starts with the narrator entering a large town, where he describes what he sees. He describes the scenes as a mix between a medieval European city and an industrialized city, both of which give off a gloomy feel. The words domes, statues, spires and grain-scattered streets remind me of a medieval city, with an overcast sky and buildings made of grey, cold stone. The residents come into the town on “dead straight miles” to buy what they need. One can assume this is a town made of up middle class residents by what they desire, which are either low quality items like cheap suits and iced lollies or necessities like washers and driers.

The third stanza continues to describe the town and its residents. He calls the town simple and says the only other people who visit are salesmen and relations. The salesman further reinforces the middle class theory because they stereotypically go door to door in suburban or middle class areas and try to sell their sometimes shady goods. Further into the city are ships lining the streets and a tattoo shop, which hint at sailors, who come on shore during leave to visit bars and tattoo shops. The ideas of these add to the dark tone because for the most part people with many tattoos are looked down upon in society and thought of as “dirty” or “ruffians”. The narrator also describes the edge of town as half built which implies an industrial setting, with the area trying to grow into a larger city. He then leaves the city and travels through wheat fields to “isolate villages” which sets a similar tone as solitude.

The end of the third stanza continues into the fourth stanza and from the opening word the gloomy tone is set. “Loneliness clarifies”, in this phrase the loneliness is clarifying the lives of the people who live in the isolated villages outside of the town. This gives an illusion to a small town where everyone knows each other and practically everyday is the exact same mundane thing where the only sense of excitement and wonder come with a new visitor. “Silence stands like heat”, along with being isolated and lonely the villages and surrounding area are completely quiet, which gives a feeling of desperation. Words like loneliness, isolated, removed, and silence give a sense of death, where nothing is happening, the villagers seem almost comatose as shown by the following lines.

“Here leaves unnoticed thicken

Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken”

These lines allude to the area around the villages returning back to “nature” or a time where they were undisturbed by man. The narrator finally reaches what seems to be the ocean, by the words “bluish neutral distance” and the fact that the land ends suddenly beyond a beach. Oceans are vast and you cannot see past the horizon, which leads to the unknown in every direction except the way you came. The unknown vastness of the ocean is generally a solemn thought, which cements the tone of the entire poem.

The poem “Here” by Philip Larkin has a dark and gloomy tone from beginning to end, with only one positive phrase at the beginning which quickly turns to apathy. The tone is set by words like “isolated”, “loneliness”, “untalkative”, “dead straight miles” and “solitude”. During this poem the reader feels a sense of despair and sadness rush over them. The narrator finds something depressing in every environment he visits, from cities to rural fields to the ocean. There is also a slight disdain for the middle class in the second and third stanzas, which lead to the thought that the narrator is of a higher class. Overall, this is a very dark, depressing poem with the tone clearly set and reinforced throughout the poem.