Analysis Of William Carlos Williams The Young Housewife

A modernist by trade, William Carlos Williams works with other artists in an effort to start and perpetuate a new movement. Working within the constraints that focused on breaking free from past restrictions and conscriptions with an eye towards current events and cultural influences, Williams is building something beautifully simplistic in his poetry. Towards the beginning of his efforts in poetry Williams’ underlines the fears associated with the cultural change to modernism, and the prevalent criticisms within it. This is seen the most obviously in his poem The Young Housewife. With a definitive focus on simple lines and modern day life, The Young Housewife sits as a solidification of not only Williams’ dream for what poetry should be, but …show more content…
Williams’ is playing with single words and beautiful imagery in an effort to reveal the resistance towards change that existed. In the line following the woman’s conversers she is “shy, uncorseted, tucking in / stray ends of hair” (304). In the woman’s ability to venture outside without looking proper, without her corset to hold her together and in her negligee, she is still a shy and timid creature. While being able to allow herself to go about daily business with unkempt hair and improper dressing, she has not allowed herself to fully embrace it. The woman has yet to revel in her decision. This simple word acts to underline her uncertainty, as well as the uncertainty of the world. The same uncertainty for societal change is also seen in the last stanza with “The noiseless wheels of my car / rush with a crackling sound over / dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling” (304). The metaphor from earlier has now taken a drastic turn. The speaker is acknowledging the woman in her now found life, the shift of the culture, with a smile as he proceeds to crush those dreams in his car. The woman, after some time now a dried leaf, has pursued the modern shift and chosen poorly, as evident by her being run