http://stylishthought.com/life/empowerment/woman-by-nikki-giovanni/
The poem Woman was written to a woman from a woman about women. The speaker (Giovanni), uses the motifs of third person, gender, nature, and the duality between desire and rejection to explain how women would mold themselves to fit the needs of men. The entire poem goes into a metaphoric perspective of what “this woman” tried to transform herself to be in order to make a man happy. In stanza three she writes “she spun herself into a web” implying that after changing herself repeatedly, she ended up making her own problems and eventually needed someone to turn to but he didn’t want to be her sturdy sense of direction. It seems as though this man was not interested in everything Giovanni had to give. In the fourth stanza the speaker says “she tried to be a book but he wouldn’t read. From this the reader could denote the purpose of a book which is to create characters and give them life. This line of the poem could imply that “she” tried to give life but he was uninterested. Throughout the poem the duality of desire and rejection as well as gender are present within each stanza being that she wants something that he is unwilling to give to her. The last stanza of the poem indicates that she tried to become a woman although he was nothing like a man. In this process he realized that she was already a woman and decided she didn’t need to change to prove it.
The poem Woman was written to a woman from a woman about women. The speaker (Giovanni), uses the motifs of third person, gender, nature, and the duality between desire and rejection to explain how women would mold themselves to fit the needs of men. The entire poem goes into a metaphoric perspective of what “this woman” tried to transform herself to be in order to make a man happy. In stanza three she writes “she spun herself into a web” implying that after changing herself repeatedly, she ended up making her own problems and eventually needed someone to turn to but he didn’t want to be her sturdy sense of direction. It seems as though this man was not interested in everything Giovanni had to give. In the fourth stanza the speaker says “she tried to be a book but he wouldn’t read. From this the reader could denote the purpose of a book which is to create characters and give them life. This line of the poem could imply that “she” tried to give life but he was uninterested. Throughout the poem the duality of desire and rejection as well as gender are present within each stanza being that she wants something that he is unwilling to give to her. The last stanza of the poem indicates that she tried to become a woman although he was nothing like a man. In this process he realized that she was already a woman and decided she didn’t need to change to prove it.
good interpretation of the poem.
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a great job breaking down what you thought the poem meant. I thought about a few of the same things that you did. The only major thing that i theought about differently was that she changed because she couldn't get him to be the back bone that she needed. I also thought it was interesting how you thought she was writing the poem to other women. I saw it as she was just writing it in general to express how she had to move forward in life because things weren't going well with her past.
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