People spend years deciding what job to choose depending on their attributes as a person. This often means that the value of one’s self is either uplifted or destroyed when one chooses an occupation. Through the voices in “Blackberries” by Yusef Komunyakaa, “The Lady in the Pink Mustang” by Louise Erdrich, and “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy, the reader is able to view how jobs affect the self-image of the worker. The small boy in “Blackberries” brings to life his job of picking berries by using vivid imagery. He seems to be content with his job by describing the fruit of his labor in lines 4-6 as “Terrestrial sweetness, so thick / The damp ground was consecrated / Where they fell among a garland of thorns” (Komunyakaa 148). He is
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The speaker describes herself as common office supplies, meaning she too has become just another object at work. Her word choice evokes an anxious spirit in the reader’s mind, showing how she truly feels about work. She declares that her “breasts are wells of mimeograph ink” in line 5 because of the metaphorical meaning for breasts (Piercy 151). Breasts bring forth the milk of life for infants; her breasts, however, bring forth the ink that stains her life. She insinuates that she is pregnant with the child of her work, laboring for hours on end. Her body is swollen with the responsibilities of her job, causing her to have symptoms of pregnancy. Though she may be portraying herself as a robot, she only ever repeats one body part: her head. The head often symbolizes intelligence, the beginning of life, and recognition. In lines 8-10 she relates that her head is “A badly organized file. / My head is a switchboard / Where crossed lines crackle” which could mean that her job has become too chaotic for her to handle. She has become a robot due to the repetitiveness and lack of feeling caused by her work. The speaker successfully dehumanized herself throughout the poem by representing herself as a common machine found in an ordinary workplace. By doing this, she conveys that she is just as replaceable as the stapler
The speaker describes herself as common office supplies, meaning she too has become just another object at work. Her word choice evokes an anxious spirit in the reader’s mind, showing how she truly feels about work. She declares that her “breasts are wells of mimeograph ink” in line 5 because of the metaphorical meaning for breasts (Piercy 151). Breasts bring forth the milk of life for infants; her breasts, however, bring forth the ink that stains her life. She insinuates that she is pregnant with the child of her work, laboring for hours on end. Her body is swollen with the responsibilities of her job, causing her to have symptoms of pregnancy. Though she may be portraying herself as a robot, she only ever repeats one body part: her head. The head often symbolizes intelligence, the beginning of life, and recognition. In lines 8-10 she relates that her head is “A badly organized file. / My head is a switchboard / Where crossed lines crackle” which could mean that her job has become too chaotic for her to handle. She has become a robot due to the repetitiveness and lack of feeling caused by her work. The speaker successfully dehumanized herself throughout the poem by representing herself as a common machine found in an ordinary workplace. By doing this, she conveys that she is just as replaceable as the stapler