Second Wave of Texts

Daystar

…diapers steaming on the line,…
pinched armor of a vanished cricket
floating maple leaf

These are some images from Daystar that helped to create the tone of the poem for me. The diapers steaming on the clothes line is a very strong image of the monotony and drudgery of the heroin’s life. It is one of the first images and for me it shows that the focus of the lady is on her children and raising her family. The two following images are observations she has while she is escaping her life, if only just to go and sit behind the garage. I think the descriptions of the cricket as being vanished and the maple leaf floating tell the readers that the woman would like to describe herself that way. These images create the idea that the woman would like to escape from her life, if only for an hour, and I think that this is a central image and theme of the poem.

A Pair of Silk Stockings

…she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion.

It was like a dream ended.

This story ties into Daystar because it is about a woman temporarily escaping her life, which has become dull and unsatisfactorily plain. I wonder if these are feelings that everyone has at some point, that they have a need to do something extravagant that they used to do, but are now limited by other responsibilities. The first set of images interested me because the woman is describing this restaurant with certain attention to detail. It is also such a quite description of the restaurant and after having worked in that industry for many years I know that it is never as peaceful as she describes.

The second simile, although in context it is only describing how the woman feels after the play ends, very succinctly tells us the woman’s mindset. For her, this day of luxuries is part of the past that she is not completely willing to relinquish and I think that the entire story is written like a dream sequence and at the end of it, she does not want to wake up.

Why I Want A Wife

I belong to that classification of people known as wives.

I found this opening interesting because I think that today, I would not consider being a wife a classification, but more of a title. I do think that there is still an older way of thinking that would include all of the listed attributes as things a wife should have, but I also get more of an impression in modern society that wives are thought of more like partners and this changes as more and more men are exercising what were the traditional duties of a wife. This statement is a good introduction to the essay because the author sees a wife as someone who must fulfill all of the tasks mentioned and then, since the expectations are so preposterous, she concludes that anyone, male or female, should want a wife because a wife will take all of the burden out of your life. She is taking a role that should consist of the female counterpart in a marriage and saying that it has escalated to a position with a classification, essentially a gender determined name for a slave.