Women by Louise Bogan

Women by Louise Bogan

The poem that I chose to do is “Women” by Louise Bogan. I believe that the author is being straightforward, but at the same time also being sarcastic in certain parts of the poem. She sounds as if she may be criticizing women, specifically women who repress their feelings, passions, and who keep to themselves. Women who are passive, docile, wise, and prophetic-like but that may not necessarily be the case. She portrays this through line one and line three (“Women have no wilderness in them/Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts”).   It is said that her life and her lyrics are intimately intertwined, so under these lines I think that she may be trying to say that she wishes she could be the opposite of these characteristics that were found in many women back in those times. But at the same time it would be very hard to be the opposite of these characteristics considering the few opportunities that were laid out for women in those times. I mean women were practically tied to their lives as wives, and mothers, unacknowledged work, little opportunities, and variety of experience. It makes one wonder how women kept themselves sane within a patriarchal society where men were not so tolerant to women as individuals. It’s as if being introverted was the new in, in those times.
In lines five through eight what struck me the most were the words, “They do not see/They do not hear” because it is as if she’s saying that these women she is writing about in her poem are not happy, they have conformed to their regular living standards. And almost everyone knows that when one is happy one seems to notice minor details more like the “cropping red winter grass, and the snow water going down under culverts.” These things which are supposed to be beautiful, and that do not require so much thought to be seen as beautiful are overlooked by these women because they are unhappy. It’s as if their routine of bread making, quilt sewing, and child caring have...