Powerful Theme and Allusions to Sex in Andersons Womanhood :: Anderson Womanhood Essays

Powerful Theme and Allusions to Sex in Andersons char Catherine Andersons poem Womanhood tells about a young fille and her transition to femininity. In this intricately woven poem the reader will learn very secondary about the girl. Neither she nor her mother are ever named, and no breeding is given about them or their family life. What the reader does discover is what lies ahead for her as she begins her first day sewing rugs. The poem begins a few moments forward she enters the gates of the sweatshop that symbolizes her entry into womanhood. Anderson uses metaphor within this poem to dramatize the distinction in what lies ahead for her. She should be looking forward to a smart as a whip and cheerful future, instead, she is faced with the drudgery of a life working in a sweatshop sewing rugs. Anderson has woven this poem together so on that point is a link created between the first and second stanzas of the poem. Each name in the first stanza, describing the carefree atti tude of the young girl correlates with a line in the second stanza illustrating how her life will be remote different after she enters the gates of the factory and womanhood. Within this poem in that respect are many references or allusions to wind. Most women are considered to have entered womanhood when they have their first sexual experience with a man. Anderson plays up this panorama of becoming a woman in the poem to symbolize the girls losing her artlessness and youth to work in the sweatshop. In essence, she is losing her virginity to that same sweatshop. The first of these allusions to sex is in the opening lines of the poem she slides over/the hot upholstery (1,2). The young girl is described as sliding over hot upholstery, like girls sometimes do to snuggle up next to their boyfriends when driving a car. This indite can also be seen as a metaphor for the hot young skin of a beautiful young girl. Another deterrent example of these references is when Anderson descr ibes the girl as loves humming & swaying to the music (5). This can be seen as the act of sexual intercourse itself. The rhythmic swaying of bodies can be seen as little else especially when paired with line 25, rocking back and forth(25). This is pass on emphasized by Anderson by her use of the ampersand signs (&) which she only uses in these 2 lines.