By Tessa Saric

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When deciding what poem to adopt for this blog post assignment, I quickly gravitated toward the one with the word “mother” in the title. Literature and critical thought surrounding the concept of motherhood will always capture my attention, being a young feminist woman myself who often contemplates my own womanhood in relation to my ability, and perhaps, as viewed by some, my obligation to rear children and perform household duties.

Cover of a 1901 edition of The Yellow Wallpaper

Given that the poem itself is decently straightforward, I believed some biographical research was in order to be able to completely understand Gilman’s sentiment in writing this poem. Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman was a novelist, writer, and notable feminist and social reformer active in the late 19th century, most famously known for having written the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” about a woman’s confinement in a room due to her depression following the birth of her and her husband’s baby. Gilman’s personal struggles relating to her motherhood in conjunction with the societal standards for the structure of the home in this period in history intrigued me, particularly her ideas surrounding social reform of the home and women’s roles in that. She principally believed that housework should be shared equally by women and men, and proposed a total cultural and structural reframing of the home that absolved women of the sole responsibility to uphold it, and absolved men of the lack of responsibility to it. Gilman herself had a daughter, but I found it most relevant that her own mother died the year her poetry collection In This Our World, in which this poem appears, was published.

The first stanza paints a picture of a dying woman calling her daughter to listen to her instructions in her final moments. A mother’s presence in the home as an impact in her child’s life is something that I’ve always understood to be important despite my disbelief that housework is an intrinsic aspect of motherhood. The scene set up here in this opening stanza is one that I believe Gilman is critiquing as a vital one at this point in history. “With hot and glittering eye” indicates tears in the mother’s eyes as she states that she knows death is upon her in this moment (Gilman 1). And yet, her first instinct as she calls upon her young daughter who is “gasping” at this sight, is to “pour these instructions” unto her (8). I think Gilman’s intention here in setting the scene this way, and having the mother prepare herself and her daughter for what she is about instruct her to do, is to comment on the believed expectation and importance of this time for women to pass down the knowledge and skill of household duties to their daughters. As touched on in the last stanza, this mother knows what her daughter’s fate in life will be, and acts in a way that signifies not only her own participation in this patriarchal practice, but her desperate and calculated inoculation of her daughter into it in her last moments. I’m not sure I can adequately relate my experience with my own mother and the ideas of motherhood and wifehood that she has instilled upon me up until this point in my life due to the over-a-century’s difference in the societal expectations (as well as limitations) placed upon women during Gilman’s life and mine. But what I can say confidently is my thankfulness that that is the case. Although I loosely believe that in the case that a woman does assume motherhood, it is necessary for her to perform motherly duties to her child(ren) as to benefit them socially and developmentally, I do believe similarly to Gilman that it is unfair to impress wifehood and the role of the sole homemaker upon a woman solely because she is a mother.

The middle stanza functions as the message Gilman is getting across — the “mother’s charge” being a list of household skills and duties in which it is her job to perform and pass down to her daughter(s) as a result of her womanhood. I think that this portion of the poem functions as the connection Gilman is both making and critiquing between womanhood, motherhood, wifehood, and homemaker. The female identity between both characters in this poem is the crucial aspect of it, in that, again, the performance of these skills was something that was expected of women and women only at this time, and Gilman stood in direct opposition to throughout her career. My personal experience with this poem as a woman living in the western world in the 21st century who is not necessarily expected by larger society to become a wife, mother, and homemaker at as great of a degree as I would have been had I been one of the 19th century, is one of empathy for women like Gilman who suffered from postpartum depression in a time where women were deemed “hysterical” in their mental health struggles that result from their oppression. I believe women still face this label today, in the sense that action of outward expression or even just the discussion of emotions is attributed to our sex and deemed a weakness. I and many women today struggle with not being taken seriously when it comes to healthcare and our wellbeing.

Portrait of Charlotte Perkins Gilman with her daughter Katharine Beecher Stetson, 1893

The last stanza states the inevitable fate of the mother, daughter, and really any future females born to this line – mother. This part of the poem really hit me emotionally, and it makes me think about generations of women not too long before me that were faced with the charge of motherhood under patriarchal society. The idea that wifehood and motherhood was the societal expectation of women, the box that they were squeezed into, standard they were expected to meet in order to survive in most cases.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my post, women’s literature is some of my favorite to read and analyze, especially when it is in the context of the meaning of “womanhood” and the implications of that existence throughout history. This poem in particular in its unfolding of events raises questions to me regarding mother/daughter relations at this time and whether they were emotionally fulfilling due to the ever-present job of wife and mother, of whom it is their unique responsibility to pass down from generation to generation. When I read this poem, I think of not only the character of the mother on her deathbed, desperately getting this information across in order for her daughter to successfully fill her shoes in the role she was always destined to assume, but I think of the daughter too, who instead of receiving loving words from her mother as she is in dying in pain before her, she receives a list of household duties she is to perform for the rest of her life.

Gilman, Charlotte Anna Perkins. The Mother’s Charge. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52091/the-mothers-charge

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 April 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman#

By: Shannon Walsh

For my second blog post, I decided to explore the poem “Alone” by Celia Thaxter. I titled this blog post “Contradictions in Nature,” because I found Thaxter’s poems to emphasize that idea. Her poem is entitled, “Alone,” and most definitely explores themes of loneliness and solitude, however, she does it in such a way that diminishes the negative connotation that sometimes follows the word ‘alone.’ She does not just compare aloneness to loneliness, but also explores themes of longing, solitude, and isolation. 

After reading the poem a few times, I have understood that Thaxter praises nature as she describes certain scenes when writing: “evening’s dusk and dew,” “lilies clustered fair and tall,” and “rich roses blushing red.” These small descriptions of nature immediately set the scene of the poem, something that seems like a garden. Additionally, I understood the “she” of the poem to be the woman who is tending to the flowers in the garden. The speaker observes her actions and expresses a longing to be closer to her, or perhaps her object of attention. This longing suggests that the unnamed woman holds significance to the speaker in some way, although never explicitly mentioned. The speaker observes the woman with an endearing tone, one that gives the poem a kind of poignant feel. Thaxter’s portrayal of solitude offers a perspective of profound appreciation for being alone. Overall, the poem has an introspective tone, where the speaker seems to be someone on the outside looking in, then consequently reflecting inwards of themselves. 

I chose this poem out of the list because its simplicity spoke to me. The short lines with beautiful descriptions captivated me upon first glance. I sometimes find it challenging to interact with short poems because I find that there is not much substance to pull from (which of course is not entirely true), or that I am interpreting the meaning of the poem entirely wrong. However, I was not met with those challenges when analyzing this poem. Thaxter’s language and tone made the poem flow so easily, which helped to illustrate its themes. 

The poem follows an AABB, or ​​coupled, rhyme scheme. As I find with many poems, the tactic of rhyming helps the poem to read more like a song and flow very well. She did not utilize any words that I did not know the prior meaning of, which also allowed me to read through the poem fluidly. There are four stanzas, each with four lines that end with a period at the end. The one exclamation mark in line three of stanza four drew my attention more directly to the line, “That rose she touched so tenderly!” I often notice punctuation marks in poetry because I find that they are intentional and make the readers notice something different about the line they are paired with. 

The poem holds strong cultural meaning in several ways. For example, “Alone” reflects on themes of romanticism and nature, both common to 19th century poetry.  The deep appreciation for nature’s beauty, along with themes of love and longing all speak to common themes of the Romantic period. A main idea that reveals itself in the last two lines of the poem is desolation when Thaxter writes, “I stood alone, outside the gate, And knew that life was desolate.” The speaker’s individual experience is actually common to the overall human experience with feelings of loneliness and desolation despite the beauty of the things and people around us and in nature.

In terms of my own experience, I feel as though I have experienced moments similar to those the speaker is addressing. Thaxter is writing about a specific scene in a garden, but her message seems to be more broad. I have experienced moments of solitude in nature, specifically ones where I observe the other people around me and feel a strange longing to be recognized or understood by them, or strangers in general. 

Along with the ways in which “Alone” is deemed culturally significant, are its factors that make it typical of nineteenth century poetry. These factors include the form, tone, and themes that I have mentioned above. However, Thaxter also employs factors that deviate from nineteenth century poetry as well. For example, the poem subverts typical gender roles in the sense that the speaker shows their vulnerability and emotional expression. Additionally, Thaxter’s poem offers a perspective on love and longing from a female viewpoint, which was less common in mainstream poetry throughout the nineteenth century. 

This poem (and my experience with it) was beautiful. The language of it feels timeless and universal for the human experience. I enjoyed the incorporation of nature and humans into one poem. The idea of the speaker being so curious and “longing” for someone, or something, was a really intriguing topic to read about through the form of poetry.

The image above depicts the poet Celia Thaxter