The Young Housewife By Williams Summary

Love and literary works of poetry have been used together to portray one’s feeling of admiration or longing towards someone or something. Lust, which can be looked down upon, is used with caution and is at times seen as the protagonist of different verses. Imagist poet William Carlos Williams’ approach to love is one society deems unconventional. There are rare occurrences where both of these emotions are used simultaneously to describe what a person once shared with another person. In his poem The Young Housewife, the underlying tone of lust can lead one to conclude that a secret and past relationship, full of love and lust, existed between the speaker and a woman. Williams uses both poetic forms and an illustrating choice of words to show the interaction or loss of interaction between the speaker and the main object of the poem, the housewife.
Williams’ poem is written in free verse, meaning it lacks commitment to a rhyme scheme or meter. Commitment is what usually determines the strength and duration of a relationship. There is a correlation between …show more content…
Referring to a previous point, the housewife is paralleled to a dried, "fallen leaf" that eventually is ran over by the speaker 's car. Considering that, one can come to the conclusion that the speaker and the housewife were once past lovers who were forced to end their affair because the housewife’s fear of her husband discovering her and her lover. Everywhere in the poem, the speaker describes a disheveled, dispirited housewife going about her daily work, yet as the housewife is passed, the speaker bows and passes smiling. Even though the relationship is over, the speaker still sends her a fond and warm greeting. This is due to the time spent together and memories the speaker remembers from their time together. The physical interaction between the two is gone but the romance and emotional thread is still attached amongst the speaker and