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Poem: To the young wife by Charlott­e Perkins Gilman

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KAU University Jeddah Saudi Arabia Kingdom

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To the Young Wife

Do you prefer to play a domestic role or a social one? Each society has its own ways to treat women who live in it. Those ways depend on many factors such as: religion, customs, the time, the environment and the awareness of society members.

Specifically, “To the Young Wife,” is a poem written by an American novelist known as Charlotte Gilman. She was a social reformer, and a campaigner of the Feminist movement (Women’s liberation). The aim of this movement is to establish equal political, economic, and social rights for women.

Actually, It started at the end of the Victorian age which is often referred to as “the turn of the century” or the Progressive Era. In that time, men had autocratic authority over women and had abused women mentally, not physically. Moreover, they confined women to the domestic spaces and prevented them from playing social roles.

Therefore, a group of middle-class women had struggled for equal rights, and Gilman was one of those women who had experienced this indirect suppression and was one of its victims. As a result, she wrote many works aimed to improve women’s situations in her society, and the poem, “To the Young wife” is one of these works.

This poem has a sarcastic and convincing tone, dynamic images, and some vivid elements of figurative language, particularly symbols. In fact, these poetic elements contribute to convey the message of the poem.

The poem has an ironic and persuasive tone. The poem has a lot of the rhetorical questions which call for women’s feelings and motivate the changing of their minds. One of these questions repeated many times within the poem is “Are you content…?”(line 1) For example, she asks the beautiful women of that time if they are “content and satisfied to live on what your husbands love to give” (lines 2-3).

Actually, she wants to convey to them that they are at the mercy of their husbands; they give them money, love and also life itself. In other words, she wants to say that women are helpless, and cannot do anything without the consent of their husbands. Otherwise, she is mocking them by saying “your loving husband” (line 3) because if the woman’s husband loves her, he will do what his beloved wants and sacrifices for her.

Moreover, she asks them if they are content to be treated as a n.....[read full text]

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Then, the speaker narrows the range of extension of their kingdom and describes those housewives as the “queen of a cook-stove throne” (line 8). This means that they only have a power over their “kitchens” because they are actually “kitchen-maids,” (line 7) not queens.

Otherwise, the speaker stimulates the Victorian woman’s feelings by describing her as “a pretty three-years’ wife” (line 1) which means that she is young, vibrant and full of energy. That means she should not submit herself to her husband’s desires and her children’s needs, but she has to use this unlimited energy in serving society by playing public roles.

Those are some examples of the animated images that portray the poem’s message.

Besides, the poem has some vivid elements of figurative language, particularly symbols. First, the Victorian woman who “gives [her] life to [her] husband” (line 4), “toils alone” (line 5), “rears children” (line 13) and is confined to a “restricted space” (line 35) is a symbol of every self-sacrificed stay-at-home woman at any time and place.

Second, the Victorian man who has authority over woman and “fastens her in her place” (line 12) is a symbol of any authoritarian and domineering man at any time and place. Third, the “wooden palace and a yard-fenced land” (line 10) is a symbol of the prison and the housewives are like the prisoners who are “fastened in [their] places” (line 12).

Finally, the throne is always the source and the symbol of authority, prosperity, power, comfort and popularization. However, the speaker makes it the source and symbol of difficulties and discomfort when she says a cook-stove throne” (line 8). That means that this fake “throne” lies on a fire blaze which might burn the “queen” who pretends it.

All in all, these are some examples of the dyn.....

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  1. The tone of the poem is sarcastic and persuasive.

  1. Calling for women’s feelings by repeating the phrase “Are you content…”

  2. Using the phrase “Be not deceived! “

  3. Using the expression “Queen of a cook-stove throne”.

  4. Using the expression “your loving husband”

  5. Using the expression “a kitchen-maid”

  • Showing women how they can balance between their domestic duties and their social roles (stanzas: 7-8).

  • Using the expression “To clean things dirty and to soil things clean “.

  • Using the expression “A life with no beyond “.

    1. The poem has some vivid elements of figurative language, particularly symbols.

    1. The Victorian woman is a symbol of all oppressed women all over the world.

    2. The Victorian man is a symbol of all authoritarian men in everywhere.

    3. The house is a symbol of prison, and that is clear when the speaker says, “Each fastened in her place?”

    4. Using the word “throne” with different and unusual connotation.

    1. The speaker uses some dynamic images to show how women are suppressed and belittled.

    1. Using the expression “wooden p.....

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