"A Woman's Work" Poem Explication
A Mother’s Work
ENG/125
March 6, 2013
A Mother’s Work
A liquid takes the form of the container into which it is poured. Similarly, an artist chooses a medium for painting or sculpture, and a poet chooses a form. This aesthetic should complement the artist’s overall theme. In the case of “Woman’s Work” by Julia Alvarez, the chosen form is a villanelle. This form is very restrictive and repetitive, often used to express some sort of obsessiveness. Alvarez slightly modifies the traditional structure of the villanelle repetition and rhyme scheme by using a lot of feminine rhymes and repeating lines in spirit but not necessarily in law. In much the same way, the rigid repetitiveness of housework done by the author’s mother is the focus of the poem. Alvarez resists at first, but finally accepts the value of this much-disputed “woman’s work” in the last stanza, by drawing a parallel between her mother’s house work and her own writing.
The poem begins with the voice of Alvarez’s mother. “Who says a woman’s work isn’t high art?” (J. Alvarez, p. 790) is certainly not the author’s sentiment. In the first few stanzas it is painfully obvious that Alvarez’s answer to this question would be “Me!” According to her mother, scrubbing the bathroom tiles, shining the tines of forks, and cutting lacy lattices for pies is the pinnacle of a woman’s purpose in the world, a way to express her love and devotion to her family: an art. Alvarez sighs in line five, longing to play with her friends and leave behind the oppressive repetition of keeping house. Despite the liberties she takes with the structure and rhyming, and the enjambment (breaking the lines while continuing the idea), in lines four and five, as well as lines six through eight, it is still clear from the rigidness of the chosen form that Alvarez was “kept prisoner in her [mother’s] housebound heart” (p. 790). But in line twelve, a change occurs. Years have passed between the eleventh and twelfth
ENG/125
March 6, 2013
A Mother’s Work
A liquid takes the form of the container into which it is poured. Similarly, an artist chooses a medium for painting or sculpture, and a poet chooses a form. This aesthetic should complement the artist’s overall theme. In the case of “Woman’s Work” by Julia Alvarez, the chosen form is a villanelle. This form is very restrictive and repetitive, often used to express some sort of obsessiveness. Alvarez slightly modifies the traditional structure of the villanelle repetition and rhyme scheme by using a lot of feminine rhymes and repeating lines in spirit but not necessarily in law. In much the same way, the rigid repetitiveness of housework done by the author’s mother is the focus of the poem. Alvarez resists at first, but finally accepts the value of this much-disputed “woman’s work” in the last stanza, by drawing a parallel between her mother’s house work and her own writing.
The poem begins with the voice of Alvarez’s mother. “Who says a woman’s work isn’t high art?” (J. Alvarez, p. 790) is certainly not the author’s sentiment. In the first few stanzas it is painfully obvious that Alvarez’s answer to this question would be “Me!” According to her mother, scrubbing the bathroom tiles, shining the tines of forks, and cutting lacy lattices for pies is the pinnacle of a woman’s purpose in the world, a way to express her love and devotion to her family: an art. Alvarez sighs in line five, longing to play with her friends and leave behind the oppressive repetition of keeping house. Despite the liberties she takes with the structure and rhyming, and the enjambment (breaking the lines while continuing the idea), in lines four and five, as well as lines six through eight, it is still clear from the rigidness of the chosen form that Alvarez was “kept prisoner in her [mother’s] housebound heart” (p. 790). But in line twelve, a change occurs. Years have passed between the eleventh and twelfth
References: Barnet, S., Burto, W., & Cain, W. E. (2011). Literature for composition: Essays, stories, poems, and plays (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.