Taylor Rister
Mrs. Carter
AP Literature
10 March 2014
Without Rest
Woman Work
I've got the children to tend 1
The clothes to mend 2
The floor to mop 3
The food to shop 4
Then the chicken to fry 5
The baby to dry 6
I got company to feed 7
The garden to weed 8
I've got shirts to press 9
The tots to dress 10
The can to be cut 11
I gotta clean up this hut 12
Then see about the sick 13
And the cotton to pick. 14
Shine on me, sunshine 15
Rain on me, rain 16
Fall softly, dewdrops 17
And cool my brow again. 18
Storm, blow me from here 19
With your fiercest wind 20
Let me float across the sky 21
'Til I can rest again. 22
Fall gently, snowflakes 23
Cover me with white 24
Cold icy kisses and 25
Let me rest tonight. 26
Sun, rain, curving sky 27
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone 28
Star shine, moon glow 29
You're all that I can call my own. 30
The first stanza of Maya Angelous Woman Work is exhausting. The title
itself sets the stage for the tedium in front of the poems speaker. Woman Work
has the ambiguity to either be a noun, describing the subject of the poem, or a
command to the speaker to move forward. Moving forward through such a busy
mundane existence would certainly take a driving factor. In the first thirteen lines
of the poem there is no period, no comma, no cue to rest. The syntactical
structure of the first stanza itself imitates the relentless routine the speaker is
going through, and communicates her motivation only through the anaphora of,
Ive got (1-14). The words imply that her actions take place out of necessity and
no desire of her own, and the repetition displays the commonness of this
stimulus. Furthering the tedium of her tasks is the simplistic rhyme scheme of the
first stanza. Each couplet ends with a masculine rhyme that is so base in nature
that only one letter is changed to reach the next point. Tend transitions to
mend, feed to weed, and press to dress with the mechanical efficiency
and rhythm of a factory worker pulling a series of levers or a mother shifting pots
around the surface of a stove. The sheer length of this laundry list of chores
communicates the speakers fatigue, and with its repetitive use of one-syllable
rhymes the womans boredom with her routine is also evident.
However, the tone shifts in the fifteenth line. The quick flurry of activity that
was presented in the first stanzas short verbs slows down to the lull of a
daydream. For the first time, the woman focuses on herself rather than her work,
and everything becomes more tranquil. In comparison to the wearying nonstop
lack of punctuation in the first half of the poem, the latter is broken neatly into
four stanzas, each composed of four lines, with every stanza ending as a
complete sentence. This subtle repetition of four lends itself to the nature being
discussed within the stanzas, as does the more natural rhyme scheme. Rather
than every two lines rhyming in a stop and go motion like pistons moving in and
out, every other line has a more approximate end stop rhyme, like stone and
own, that helps the poetry float along, providing just enough unity without
seeming forced (28-30). This relaxation on the previously rigid format lends itself
to the speakers shift from tired hustle to an imaginative escapism.
The shift in the poems structure not only helps stress the shift in tone, but
it also helps emphasize the imagery of the separate halves. The first stanzas
imagery is primarily verb driven, and with each short exact verb a busy flourish of
activity is displayed before quickly fading into its rhymed successor, and in each
of these moments, the speaker is the executer of each action. She is the one to
mop and shop and dry and fry, but in the second half of the poem, she takes on a
more passive role. She asks nature to shine on her, rain on her, float her off, and
cover her up. In using words with more peaceful connotations like rest, softly,
and float, a more relaxed atmosphere is created.
In fact, each of the last four stanzas focuses on a different type of peace.
In lines fifteen to eighteen, the use of sunshine rather than sun provokes
comfortable warmth, while the presence of both rain and dew creates images of
cleansing and coolness. Rain is used in an entirely different manner in lines
nineteen to twenty-two, where the presence of a storm is at first frightening with
its connection to the word fierce. However, it soon becomes clear that the storm
and its wind are present to act as a symbol of strength, meant to blow away the
speaker so she can float across the sky (21). After such a prominent display of
strength, it makes sense that the next stanza focuses on snow. The stillness that
it brings is to cover the woman entirely, and bring her rest (24). Whether it is
cleansing rain, transporting winds, or engulfing snow, the speaker finds solace in
just the daydream of nature and the freedom it can bring for her, so it is not
surprising when she concludes that it is nature, that gives so much to her, if only
in her mind, and not her house which she must tend so thoroughly, that she calls
her own (30). The aggressive syntax and structure of the first half of the poem
communicates what a burden woman work can be. The tedium and boredom is
present in every squat verb. Rest is as absent as punctuation. By the time the
second stanza brings its welcome structural shift, it is clear why part of womans
work is to daydream of an escape from her taxing duties to a world where
commas allow for breathes to be drawn and images of snow, wind, and rain bring
her rest.