The Struggle Towards Progress
William Carlos Williams, an imagist poet, superiorly controls the meaning of his poems by using subtle language manipulations. One such poem is The Young Housewife. Here, the poet presents the perspective of a person who drives by and sees a young housewife near the curb buying everyday essentials from the ice-man and fish-man. The passerby originally is intrigued by this woman’s daily routine, but at the end, he loses interest in her due to social norms and stigma. This poem was published in 1916, a time when women championed for equal rights as men through the women 's suffrage movement. At that time, women were considered to be inferior to men and had to obey the male authority in the household. In The Young Housewife, the author uses syntax, imagery, symbolism, and poem-setup to show the constricted life of a woman in the 1920s and the struggle to eventual freedom that women gain.
Syntactical nuances in this poem illustrate …show more content…
The poem is broken down as a quatrain, quintet, and finally a tercet. The quatrain starts off by setting the scene and describing the young housewife. He is intrigued to see a pretty woman inside a house wearing a flimsy garment. This increased fascination is shown by the lengthy stanza structure. In the quintet, he talks about the daily chores she does, like “call[ing] the ice-man, fish-man.” He sees that she is fulfilling her wifely duties by doing the housework and caring for the house. This stanza is also lengthy because the speaker is keenly observing the woman’s activities. Finally, the speaker realizes that the chores of the woman signify that she is confined to her relationship, and he has no chance to pursue her. So, his interest recedes and he comradely “bow[s] and pass[es] smiling.” This diminished care for the woman is depicted by the short, curt tercet-ending of the
William Carlos Williams, an imagist poet, superiorly controls the meaning of his poems by using subtle language manipulations. One such poem is The Young Housewife. Here, the poet presents the perspective of a person who drives by and sees a young housewife near the curb buying everyday essentials from the ice-man and fish-man. The passerby originally is intrigued by this woman’s daily routine, but at the end, he loses interest in her due to social norms and stigma. This poem was published in 1916, a time when women championed for equal rights as men through the women 's suffrage movement. At that time, women were considered to be inferior to men and had to obey the male authority in the household. In The Young Housewife, the author uses syntax, imagery, symbolism, and poem-setup to show the constricted life of a woman in the 1920s and the struggle to eventual freedom that women gain.
Syntactical nuances in this poem illustrate …show more content…
The poem is broken down as a quatrain, quintet, and finally a tercet. The quatrain starts off by setting the scene and describing the young housewife. He is intrigued to see a pretty woman inside a house wearing a flimsy garment. This increased fascination is shown by the lengthy stanza structure. In the quintet, he talks about the daily chores she does, like “call[ing] the ice-man, fish-man.” He sees that she is fulfilling her wifely duties by doing the housework and caring for the house. This stanza is also lengthy because the speaker is keenly observing the woman’s activities. Finally, the speaker realizes that the chores of the woman signify that she is confined to her relationship, and he has no chance to pursue her. So, his interest recedes and he comradely “bow[s] and pass[es] smiling.” This diminished care for the woman is depicted by the short, curt tercet-ending of the