The Poem Women by Louise Bogan - Literature review Example

Essay, analysis a poem "Women" by Louise Bogan. “The society is in slumber, the law is helpless, and women get stuck up nowhere to go”! Introduction: The tone of the poem "Women" by Louise Bogan is sarcastic. But it is not written with a defeatist attitude about women or in a challenging mode. Bogan lists out certain alleged inferior values of women, but her enumeration is not scientific to prove the point, as such no women will be willing to accept her observations in totality. Even the poet does not want it to be accepted by womenfolk as she does not sternly means what she says. She is just playing the musical chair through those lines for enlightenment of women and takes potshots at the male-dominated society and the way it thinks about women. She is pretty sure about the double standards practiced in society regarding the status of women. Legally, in most of the countries women have equal rights, but as for the ground realities, the scale of justice invariably tilts against her and she is the victim of clever discrimination by societal standards from the cradle to the grave and from the womb to the tomb. She begins the poem by stating “Women have no wilderness in them”, and there is poetic grace in her assertions and in her own style she conveys what a man should not do to a woman. With this sentence she at once creates a platform for discussion as for the topic of men-women relationships. What if the menfolk still do not behave? She asks the women not to take the challenging posture or remain passive. Thus her observations seem to be contradictory. For those to whom the cause of women is dear, may immediately retort with the question why? This initiates a discussion, and something favorable to women is bound to come out of such discussions from various platforms, in which case the purpose of the poet is served. The creation of such discussion platforms itself is a positive development for the cause of women. Howsoever intelligently a poet may try to sweep under the carpet but one cannot help the reflection of individual experiences in the poem. The loss of her husband and the experiences relating to divorce proceedings with her another husband must have turned her cynical and she must have thought that human beings are ignoble as in such circumstances a woman has to bear the brunt of all agony. The poem draws its strength from those hearty feelings and the resultant vibrations create a peculiar type of setting to picture his/her emotional world. ‘Silence is the sweetest sound on earth’ said Boris Pasternak, the famous Russian author. Poets are generally sentimental by nature and if the family background is problematic, it affects the reactions in the social disposition of the members of the family. Louis Bogan belonged to the working class family and her father was a mill worker. Though she had a good start in education having joined Boston’s excellent Girl’s Latin Public School and later college but she opted out after her freshmen year and married a soldier. The marriage terminated within a couple of years and she suffered another jolt in her life. She must have thought, once the downward spiral begins in a woman’s life, there is no one to come to her aid to rescue her. Just like a seasoned sculptor chisels from a stone block, and removes that which not the statue and finally emerges a beautiful statue of his imagination, Bogan removes step by step that which does not belong to the woman of her conception and a meaningful poem sees the light of the day. Her style is subtle, restrained and she articulates her views with unhurried pace. Her observations touch the borders of spirituality as such she is not reactionary but progressive. For a woman, according to her, suffering and enjoyment are alternative beats of the same heart. The unhappy marriage of her parents had a telling effect on her psyche, particularly her mother’s mental and emotional instability was a tough issue for her to put up with. The difficulties and instabilities of her childhood made her a complex personality and betrayal and distrust was part of her family heritage as if! A many-angled poem has emerged out her multi-faceted confrontations with life. Does she attack anyone? Does she attack the system of passive psyche of women in the era to which she belonged? Does she single out women alone for the plight of women? She seems to create her own model to assert that a woman is the best friend of another woman but she is also the worst enemy. Instead of protesting and rejecting the societal negativities aimed at subduing them, they advise their sisters and daughters to adopt the policy of ‘yours faithfully’! So, such willingly accepted entrapments become the societal customs. Bogan mocks at this self-enforced attitude of inaction that is transmitted from generation to generation and challenges this indoor blindness that renders women weak on all counts. The wilderness she mentions is ingrained in the inner world of women and renders the dynamic structure of their personality ineffective. Bogan, though she belonged to a lower class family (by economic standards) she had a good start in life. That she went to school and wanted to purse her studies further speaks how progressive she was considering the era to which she belonged. In the 1900s women had no objectives in life except being confined to the four walls of the house. She had nothing to fight, and she only followed her domestic routine and donned stereotype roles. The progressive streak stood terminated in her life, and the reasons are not mentioned specifically, and within one year after the marriage, she dropped out from the school. She was walking on the routine path for woman again and her career ambitions must have come to a dead end. Bogan writes “As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills/ They should let it go by. “At this juncture of her life, her inner world must have been engulfed by sarcasm when she was confronted with several negative forces which she was unable to challenge and she was compelled to be a passive observer. Time was not on the side of women in that era with the sexual unorthodoxies, male intransigence refusing to budge from its stand, her career ambition stifled, with no one to motivate her, with no concerted action from the female force as it was not organized at all, and from the unpleasant truth of the circumstances emerges the poem Women. The poet in Bogan speaks impatiently and with controlled aggression as there were none to listen to her possible outbursts. As such she speaks with bitter knowledge about “And who speaks with such bitter knowledge about “that benevolence/ To which no man is friend“? In that darkness that has enveloped her life on all fronts, she breathes foul air that stifles her individuality and cries silently and in perhaps in every household one will find such women living the life of bonded labor! She ruefully laments. With no training to enter the fray, this timid personally called woman has lost her discriminating power and does not know what is good or had for her, it is all darkness; neither has she enjoyed the beauty of the sunrise nor the beauty of the sunset. For her it is like darkness at noon in her life. These abovementioned lines are composed with the suffering live nerves of women that have become pale due to blood circulation not reaching them as such any life-force does not reach them to activate for a fight. Bogan fires her weak salvo of protest in the form of the poem Women! Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts/ To eat dusty bread. With these two sentences, the poet has announced the irreversible life-long sentence which the woman has to undergo, possibly with no right to appeal. Even the hardcore prisoners hope for release from the prison on completion of their prison term, but women have no hope to come out from “the tight hot cell” once they are into the entrapment of marriage. She introduces the grim metaphor of prison to highlight the conditions of women. Their lives become like the muffled drum and they come to forget what the musical splendor of the orchestra is about! Perennial tension becomes part of their life. Only the woman who has the experience of “the tight hot cell” knows the agony of her existence, from which there is no chance of reformation or rehabilitation. She is part of the catastrophe called the life of a woman, continually waiting with the hope of liberation that will never happen in her life, with day to day degeneration of her spirits, her shadow within the four walls, mutely mocking at her existence, an unseen power controlling her senses and their activities, her isolation and enclosures threatening her existence being compelled to live a directionless and destination-less life, every minute of life is nothing but the life of stinging torture, and how one can think that the poem Women by Bogan is her meek surrender to the circumstances! Bogan’s observations in these lines pierce one’s heart: “They use against themselves that benevolence/ To which no man is friend.” Woman is compared to Mother Nature here. Season after season, Mother Nature goes on giving to the humankind, notwithstanding all the destructive acts of humankind; she still showers her benevolence on them. Similarly, the women gives, goes on giving at all times and at all costs without caring for her comforts. Even when the society misuses her generosity and goodwill, yet she gives willingly and wholeheartedly. Even when her kindness is scoffed at, yet she gives though her love is considered by people as “eager meaninglessness”. Conclusion What a powerful literary weapon this poem Women is! Women suffer throughout, in one way or the other and she has to cross the hurdles at every turn of her life. She finds herself in wilderness, directionless and destination-less and suffers silently. The multi-faceted confrontation with life affects her psyche and results in downward spiral in life. Her inner world remains engulfed with riddles that she is unable to solve and the negativities that she is unable to challenge. In effect she lives like the prisoner, the difference being that she has no hopes of getting released and her suffering is listless and endless. Work Cited Bogan, Louise. 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Louis Bogan belonged to the working class family and her father was a mill worker. Though she had a good start in education having joined Boston’s excellent Girl’s Latin Public School and later college but she opted out after her freshmen year and married a soldier. The marriage terminated within a couple of years and she suffered another jolt in her life. She must have thought, once the downward spiral begins in a woman’s life, there is no one to come to her aid to rescue her. Just like a seasoned sculptor chisels from a stone block, and removes that which not the statue and finally emerges a beautiful statue of his imagination, Bogan removes step by step that which does not belong to the woman of her conception and a meaningful poem sees the light of the day.

Her style is subtle, restrained and she articulates her views with unhurried pace. Her observations touch the borders of spirituality as such she is not reactionary but progressive. For a woman, according to her, suffering and enjoyment are alternative beats of the same heart. The unhappy marriage of her parents had a telling effect on her psyche, particularly her mother’s mental and emotional instability was a tough issue for her to put up with. The difficulties and instabilities of her childhood made her a complex personality and betrayal and distrust was part of her family heritage as if!

A many-angled poem has emerged out her multi-faceted confrontations with life. Does she attack anyone? Does she attack the system of passive psyche of women in the era to which she belonged? Does she single out women alone for the plight of women? She seems to create her own model to assert that a woman is the best friend of another woman but she is also the worst enemy. Instead of protesting and rejecting the societal negativities aimed at subduing them, they advise their sisters and daughters to adopt the policy of ‘yours faithfully’!

So, such willingly accepted entrapments become the societal customs. Bogan mocks at this self-enforced attitude of inaction that is transmitted from generation to generation and challenges this indoor blindness that renders women weak on all counts. The wilderness she mentions is ingrained in the inner world of women and renders the dynamic structure of their personality ineffective. Bogan, though she belonged to a lower class family (by economic standards) she had a good start in life. That she went to school and wanted to purse her studies further speaks how progressive she was considering the era to which she belonged.

In the 1900s women had no objectives in life except being confined to the four walls of the house. She had nothing to fight, and she only followed her domestic routine and donned stereotype roles. The progressive streak stood terminated in her life, and the reasons are not mentioned specifically, and within one year after the marriage, she dropped out from the school. She was walking on the routine path for woman again and her career ambitions must have come to a dead end. Bogan writes “As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills/ They should let it go by.

“At this juncture of her life, her inner world must have been engulfed by sarcasm when she was confronted with several negative forces which she was unable to challenge and she was compelled to be a passive observer. Time was not on the side of women in that era with the sexual unorthodoxies, male intransigence refusing to budge from its stand, her career ambition stifled, with no one to motivate her, with no concerted action from the female force as it was not organized at all, and from the unpleasant truth of the circumstances emerges the poem Women.

The poet in Bogan speaks impatiently and with controlled aggression as there were none to listen to her possible outbursts. As such she speaks with bitter knowledge about “And who speaks with such bitter knowledge about “that benevolence/ To which no man is friend“? In that darkness that has enveloped her life on all fronts, she breathes foul air that stifles her individuality and cries silently and in perhaps in every household one will find such women living the life of bonded labor!

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