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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (index to #3 samples) #3: Web Highlights |
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Brittney Wilson
Prefiguring the female paragon
Earlier in the semester when we read Anne Bradstreet’s poem “In Reference
to her Children” I had sat idly by while some (not all) of my female classmates
had made some sentimental statements relating to motherhood and how they felt a
close connection to Bradstreet’s extended metaphors about her eight baby birds
leaving the nest. I have not a maternal bone in my body unless in reference to
my dog. So I had a hard time relating to at least that piece of women’s
literature from the 17th century and imagined the rest of the genre
being written based solely on childbearing, serving her God, and then serving
her husband and children for the rest of her life. Although this was the norm
for women of the time period, it does not appeal to me. But I wanted to remain
open-minded in nature; I wanted to find things to prove me wrong and find
strength in the 17th century woman.
I first found Elizabeth Sorensen’s essay titled simply,
Anne Bradstreet, in which she talks
about the very poem I had such a hard time connecting to. Not surprisingly,
Elizabeth is a mother and felt a great connection to the poem for that reason.
It may sound contrived and harsh but I was hoping to find a strong essay in
favor of Bradstreet coming from a different position other than from the
maternal sisterhood. I hope to make it clear that I am not at all shaming
motherhood; it is just not for me and I wanted to find something else in these
writings. But Elizabeth is a mother and felt the connection that Bradstreet
intended on creating through her use of extended metaphor. Elizabeth notes on
Bradstreet’s metaphors saying that “Every day since I found out I was going to
be a mother, I have felt a fear unlike any other fear. It is a fear of any harm
coming to your child that only a parent would understand. The writing in these
stanzas describes this kind fear and longing in such beautiful words.”
Elizabeth’s description of fear and specifically fearing for her child
made me understand a little more why mothers connect with this poem so much. She
then said that even daughters could relate because this poem shows them how
their mothers feel about them and then I really got it. My mom would definitely
be an Anne Bradstreet nursing her baby birds. So, as for this Bradstreet poem, I
was able to find strength in it. Mothers were strong, childbearing was
difficult, childrearing was still difficult, and they had none of today’s
niceties.
Sticking with women’s literature, the next essay I found by Victoria Webb
titled, Two Sisters, was written on
another poem of Bradstreet’s called “The Flesh and the Spirit”. This poem was
about “the psychological struggle [between] human desire and spirituality”. The
body and the spirit are personified in two sisters, Flesh & Spirit, who are
quarreling over whether Earth or the Afterlife has more to offer them than the
other. This Bradstreet poem was more enjoyable than the others because it was
about spirituality and a little more relatable but nonetheless stiff in the
style of 17th century Puritan. Webb summed it up nicely as “human
nature in conflict” which is a common struggle for women or anyone even today so
this poem can easily stand the test of time.
The
one thing I disagree with is that Webb said Spirit was being hypocritical by
criticizing Flesh for speaking highly of her worldly goods and then describing
Heaven as having the same things and says, “Perhaps this is because the human
mind can only imagine riches and treasures as the ones found on Earth.” I think
that the Spirit in the poem is describing extraordinary riches like those
described in the Bible-beauty we couldn’t even imagine. But she does conclude
with, “Since we cannot imagine beauty we’ve never seen, Spirit had to use the
best descriptions she could.” Other than that snag of difference, I liked this
piece of Bradstreet.
Part
of Lori Arnold’s essay, Women in Early
American Literature, stuck to my new harping on Anne Bradstreet. Arnold
writes about Bradstreet’s poem “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” and
discusses the obvious topic of motherhood and the less obvious topic of death.
The first thing I noticed in her essay was that she said, “Bradstreet does not
use elaborate similes or metaphors,” since that was one of the main things
everyone mentioned about her was her use of extended metaphor when writing her
poems. When I went back and read the poem, it was pretty blunt and
straightforward, only based on motherhood, and the language was not as “simple”
as Arnold described it. In Bradstreet’s poem, a mother is fearful of dying in
childbirth and writes a farewell message to her husband, hoping to leave her
words with him even if the inevitable separation comes between them. She is
hoping to make and leave this emotional connection with her husband to cherish
and even to kiss even if she is to pass and that is a point Arnold mirrored-that
emotional connection is what makes Anne Bradstreet’s works transcend time.
Anne
Bradstreet was not the strong 17th century woman I went out searching
for but there was definitely more merit in her work than I first gave her credit
for. She wasn’t just a mother but a survivor, a caregiver, a wife, and a complex
individual who grappled with her spirituality. These domestic traits are what
she had to work with and she was probably a lot stronger of a woman than I am.
