Devices & Merit Evaluation

Poetry Devices in Woman's Work by Julia Alvarez

Link to the poem online: http://derekdenton.com/blog/2011/12/5/womans-work-by-julia-alvarez.html

Overall, the guidelines for this assignment are to include two poetry devices seen in any poems of Alvarez and to give examples. I am providing all three because I believe they are all important in order to complete the poem.

Imagery:

Woman’s Work, Line 2-3, “She’d challenge as she scrubbed the bathroom tiles.” Imagery is a huge device in this poem. In certain lines, I can clearly see a woman scrubbing her floor due to the words and phrases she utilizes. From these two lines, I felt Alvarez wanted to put the theme “woman are not equal to men // they work harder” into a poem. Alvarez goes onto discuss how her mother would not let her out of her sight and how she made her shine forks, cut lacy lattices for pies, and create art with her hands for ordinary, daily woman work around the house. The images that play in my mind from reading the descriptive words come across as a young lady who is being kept prisoner in her own house by her mother. The girl learns all of the tricks of cleaning, cooking, and providing for her family, and despises it. However, by the end of the poem, she states, “but became my mother’s child.” This clearly goes to show that she has accepted her role in life and appreciates what her mother does.

 

 

Simile

 

Woman’s Work, Line 4-5, “Keep house as if the address were your heart.” Simile also plays a role in this poem. Basically, a simile is a way to compare two things that have similar purposes or uses but are not related in any way. From these two lines, I felt like she was trying to tell us to keep our memories made in our home in our hearts. I totally agree that moments made between siblings, family members, or friends, inside those four walls, make some of the best long-lasting memories in life. Also, the father is being compared to as the owner of the house—someone who makes his daughter and wife do everything but he is still in charge. Personally, a simile is my favorite form of device in poetry. I really love taking two things that no one else would ever think of comparing, but once evaluated, they are very similar.

 

Alliteration:

Woman’s Work,  Lines 15-17, “And I, her masterpiece since I was smart, was primed, praised, polished, scolded and advised to keep a house much better than my heart”. In the poem letter P repeats itself using the words “primed, praised and polished.” Lastly, alliteration is used in this poem as well. The lines listed below are my example of alliteration that is used in a Woman’s Work. Personally, I really love these lines. The words are character qualities that the poem believes a woman should possess. In the Bible, it calls us women to submit to our husbands. God designed us to keep house and to love our children and families by serving them and keeping them nourished. Without mothers, households would probably fail and be missing an important piece—the woman. The words clearly descript what a woman should perform and behave like. Sometimes, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of others is hard work—sometimes our hearts become ugly because we are tired of people taking advantage. I like how Alvarez includes a statement to always keep our house better than our heart because sometimes someone can have a clean, fresh, and good looking home (or life) and still have an ugly heart—we are all human.

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Poet & Era Merit Evaluation

First of all, I chose to utilize a "globe" background for this website because Julia Alvarez was an immigrant. She travelled a lot. All in all, I really enjoyed studying Alvarez. Her life is very interesting and captivating--she holds her own and has not let her life's difficulties challenge her. I truly believe Alvarez is worth the time to study. Her life is so incredibly interesting—I thought this would be a boring project, but turns out her life is really cool. What started out as a “oh, I’ve already studied the other poets so I’ll just pick this one because I’ve never heard of her” thought turned into an intriguing. Her poem, “Queens” portrays an interesting perspective on her life in Queens, New York City. Also, it includes a vivid description of what racial discrimination looked like back in her day. I really enjoyed that poem.


Overall, Alvarez’s reflections on her life are very influencing in these poems. I personally connected with the poems, Dusting and Ironing their Clothes because these are things I do on a weekly basis in my own home, as a member of the household. In paragraph five of Housekeeping Cages, the sentences, “One woman advised me to listen to my own voice, deep inside, and put that down on paper” (Bedford, pg. 903). This sentence caught my attention because what that woman told her is exactly how I feel about journaling—I love writing down my deep thoughts and subterranean quotes I come across so I don’t forget them. Alvarez’s reflections on her poetry is quite profound. I really enjoyed hearing her voice, outside of the poem, to grasp a better understand of what she meant when she said what she did.

The perspective essay really drew in my attention. Mapping an Identity is exactly what Julia Alvarez did in her poems. Her poems drew off of her personal life and what she had encountered as a child—very interesting. The phrase “a new place on the map” is quite the catch of a quote that is in Johnson’s perspective paper. Overall, Julia’s poems challenged me as a reader regarding my faith and worldview. Her poetry caused me to start to think about immigrants and how we treat them. Also, it pushed me to think about my own attitude towards housework and how I complain about and/or see work as. All in all, her poetry has caused me to think about how my attitude towards immigrants and housework has impacted my faith and how people see me—how I shine light in God’s kingdom. I want to be more like Julia Alvarez—I want to motivate people and offer a different, godly perspective to the world.