William Carlos Williams comments on the brutal persistence of patriarchy in "The Raper from Passenack." The title immediately conjures the imagery of rape, and the title fuses into the first line of the poem. "The Raper from Passenack" is written in a narrative format, describing a scene in which the titular character is driving home the nameless girl who he just violated. Most of the narrative takes place inside the girl's head, and the story is told from her point-of-view. This allows the reader to empathize with the girl, and see how the rape symbolizes the structure of patriarchy and its oppression. However, embedded in "The Raper from Passenack" is an equally disturbing theme of possible complicity of women in the patriarchal structure. Williams' poem "The Raper from Passenack" conveys a sense of moral ambiguity because it has imagery of murder, ample irony, and an ambiguous ending. Moral ambiguity permeates "The Raper from Passenack," especially because the girl contemplates killing her rapist. In the seventh stanza, the girl entertains the idea of killing the rapist, especially if she finds that he infected her with a venereal disease. She states, "I wish I could shoot him. How would / you like to know a murderer? / I may do it." This stanza helps the reader understand the depth of the girl's pain and anger, as she directs the lines directly in second person singular. Breaking off the first line of the stanza on the word "would" allows the second line of the stanza to start with the word "You." This enhances the sense that the girl...
She also phrases the line in the form of a question: "How would you like to know a murderer?" By doing this, the girl (and the poet) are asking the reader to genuinely consider their feelings regarding her right to kill the person who raped her. Williams therefore creates a morally ambiguous tone and theme. Some readers will feel comfortable with the girl being a murderer because she would be justified, especially given that her murderous intentions are qualified by the line beginning the next stanza, "I'll know by the end of this week." The girl will only kill him if he gave her a disease. Although she premeditates the murder, she is not abjectly and indiscriminately cruel. Her reasoning is sound: he raped and killed her by passing on a disease; therefore the only justice would be for the rapist to die too. Her homicidal ideations are morally ambiguous, even if the reader sympathizes with the girl.
Proletarian Portrait" is a poem by William Carlos Williams that presents a brief snapshot of a working class woman, a proletarian. She is bogged down by two stigmas: class and gender. Because the reader has no other cues of the woman's identity, it is also possible that she is not white, either. Being of the non-dominant culture would make the woman an emblem of the underclass, presuming the setting
William Carlos Williams' "Pastoral" and "Proletarian Portrait" William Carlos Williams' poem "Pastoral" is narrated in an introspective, confessional voice that describes the narrator's attitude toward the streets in which he was raised. There is very little plot in the poem, and it consists mainly of details concerning the street locale. Given the minimal plot that occurs, the details assume great significance. The reader must therefore be cognizant of how the details
E.E. cummings's "she being Brand/-new" appears to be, at its surface, a poem about a man taking his car for a spin and learning the nuances of his new vehicle. The imagery and descriptions cummings uses allows the reader to understand the various things that need to be broken in. The poem's narrator freely admits the car was "consequently a little stiff," which can be further seen in how the
Force: Symbolic rape in William Carlos William's short story William Carlos William's "The Use of Force" is a strange, uncomfortable short story to read about a seemingly very simple subject. A doctor is trying to force a resistant young girl to open her mouth so he can see if she has diphtheria. The girl, not knowing the doctor is trying to help her, bravely but foolishly resists him and he must
684). Arguably the first line in which Williams introduces an aesthetic sensation, "glazed with rain water" lends itself to a bit of a play on words. Water is redundant after the word rain, but rain modifies water as well. Easterbrook writes of Williams as being a poet unique in his ability to "present imagistic pictures." The whole poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," the title itself, and the line "glazed with rain
Tract" by William Carlos Williams Throughout the poem, Williams uses free verse, which results in "Tract" reading more like prose than traditional poetry. This is one of the main concerns Williams an other modern poets had with creating their work. They were concerned with creating new forms of creating art an poetry. A sense of poetic evolution is at the heart of this type of art. In his essay, William
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