Work

Question 1

Purpose?

Answer 1

• Critiquing how hard it is for women to balance working with stay at home activities expected upon them.
• Addressing overpopulation/ globalisation?

Question 2

Structure of poem. Sig?

Answer 2

• 9 months –> pregnancy?
• Regular, 4-line stanzas. Monotonous/ repetitive cycle of work for women.

Question 3

Language to metaphysically show increase in no. of children.

Answer 3

• “one”/ “two”/ “four”/ “ten”/ “thousand”/ “millions”/ “billions.”
• Increase in no. of children but no men involved!
• Women expected to do everything!!

Question 4

Verbs to describe work woman does.

Answer 4

• “washing, ironing, sewing”
• Present tense: continually with children. Domestic role. Delicate female acts.
• “toiled, sweated, lifted.”
• Manual labour.

Question 5

Sig of “life was a dream.”

Answer 5

• Metaphor for freedom of choice.
• Could chose whether she wanted to stay at home/ work.

Question 6

Farming imagery.

Answer 6

• “sewed seeds”, “watered”, “gathered.”
• Constructive verbs –> adding to world CONTRASTS her taking from it later on!

Question 7

Example of cross-rhyme.

Answer 7

• “born.”
• “corn.”

Question 8

Motif in anthology

Alcohol.

Answer 8

• “alehouse.”
• Typically masculine job.

Question 9

Significance of shift in verbs for work from present to past. Example?

Answer 9

• “washing, ironing, sewing”
  BECOMES
• “toiled, sweated, lifted.”
• No longer present with her children.

Question 10

Sig of enjambement.

Answer 10

• Shows exponential increase in number of children.

Question 11

Sig of jobs mentioned throughout poem.

Answer 11

• Farming.
• “alehouse.”
• “factory gates.”
• Takes on typically-male professions.
• Shows evolution of jobs: factory jobs –> damaging environment/ critiquing industrialisation.

Question 12

Woman adding to the world.

Answer 12

• Farming –> constructive verbs used: “sewed seeds”/ “watered.”
• “Cities grew”
• “Skyscrapers.”
• Building infrastructure–> woman do a lot for society but go unrecognised.

Question 13

Destructive verbs.

Answer 13

• “flogged”/ “ripped”/ “burned”/ “felled trees.”
• Destroying earth to keep offspring alive.
• Critique of overpopulation.

Question 14

Sig of woman “wept rain”

Answer 14

• Put blood, sweat and tears into working for her children.

Question 15

Vivid description of woman in grave.

Answer 15

• “lay in a grave, worked, to the bone.”
• Grave isn’t even a rest.
• Order of words: lay in grave –> worked; still working after death.
• Metaphor for women working to v. old ages –> beyond retirement.
• Mother’s sacrifice for children.

Question 16

Sig of “90- hour work week?”

Answer 16

• Typically 40-hour work week becomes 90 hours with all activities that need to be done as a stay at home mother.