Block Three: Literature in the modern world - Introduction

Literature and Ideology / an Introduction

Q What is ideology?

- The dominant ideology thesis: the groups, which dominate in society, try to maintain their dominance by making their values acceptable to subordinate groups, by a systematic misrepresentation of social relationships.

- The Marx usage: Ideology, as Marx used the term, has the appearance of objective fact, but its purpose is to serve the interests of one class over and against those of another.

- In sociology: ideology is beliefs, attitudes and opinions, which form a set, whether tightly or loosely related.

- For Marx & Engels, in the German ideology: ideology in one important sense was false thought: the illusion of |a| class about itself. In this sense, it overlaps with another important Marxist concept 'false consciousness' the idea that class interests blind us to the true nature of our actions.………………………………………………………………………………………. 

Marxism and ideology: Marxism is the only body of theory to attempt a consistent and systematic analysis of how literature and ideology are related. * Pierre Macherey: the literary work must be studied in a double perspective: in relation to history, and in relation to an ideological version of that history. Eagleton's 'Marxist Criticism' (two important points)

1-Consciousness does not determine life: life determines consciousness

2-It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.  - Materialist: a term that refers to all transactions involving resources, goods and labour of any kind - Essentialist: a term that covers all theories that presuppose another, non-material dimension to existence

 

* Marx claimed that we are all born into a pre-existing social order, which inevitably shapes our perceptions and sets limits to our freedoms, though we can never be fully aware of how these restrictions act upon us. * Ideology signifies the way men live out their roles. This idea Eagleton derived from Louis Althusser's very influential definition which states: Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. The lived is what matters, conscious or not. Althusser states that 'ideology has a material existence' 

- Naturalized ideologies: we are often aware of a particular ideology in earlier literature that its authors cannot have been aware of; because it was part of the general ideological air, they breathed, for example, sexism, unconscious racism. Example: in Kipling's 'A Sahibs' War' it does not seem that Kipling was a racist, but that the story reveals some of the half-hidden ways in which racism operates. This may thus prove a good example of how a literary text can 'make us see'

  Gaps and Silences: for Marxist theorist Pierre Macherey, a text may enable us to 'see' more than even its author was consciously aware of (unconscious racism) Two points: a- What the critic should undertake is a description of the knowledge, which the text unknowingly contains. The critic is therefore not a judge or evaluator. His task is more like that of a scientist describing the structure of a natural object.  b- The relationship between the texts conscious and unconscious elements; explicit and implicit (unspoken) elements, and the implicit is not intentional; it is what is unsaid, the silence.   'A Sahibs' War by Rudyard Kipling Kipling is associated with British imperialism. The topic of the story is about the British Empire, and the imperialist character, chivalry and bravery. In the story, the white race was superior; therefore, it was part of the naturalized ideology.  * Kipling's brand of imperialism 'Civilising the world was a worthwhile task' 

'A Sahibs' War' by Kipling Title: Arabic for friend, it epitomizes an authoritarian relationship between the white rulers and the black indigenous people they governed. It means the boss class and there was a gentlemen's agreement that the war should be limited to the sahibs. However, the story goes on to suggest, the sahib ethos (the soul of the people) will never win it. The story was told in the persona of a Sikh (a member of an Indian cavalry, in which only the officers were British). Q In 'A Sahibs' War', does Kipling approve of the Sikh's racism?

Kipling's personal views were hidden behind a narrative device, which allowed him to express racism without owning to it. It was 'explicit' that the Sikh was a racist, but what about the 'implicit'? Is Kipling a racist? To create an Indian who is so unmistakably a sadist is an act of racism. Kipling portrays the Sahib as a heroic, high-minded, chivalrous and silent man unlike the Sikh who talks too much and shows too much emotion like a woman. The Sahib is silent and masculine whereas the Sikh is talkative and feminine. * The story pretends that there was a buddy-like equality between the English Sahib and the Sikh, but what does the Indian get out of it? In Kipling's time, the 'official' answer would have been civilization. It takes a white man's ghost to prevent a 'native' atrocity. Thus Empire teaches the natives civilization.    Englishness Q what are the characteristics of Englishness? 

Masculine not feminine Active not passive Vigorous Wealthy not working class To belong to the Establishment High minded, on a higher moral ground

 Cultural Imperialism: This 'constructed' English character, which can be viewed as an ideology, did not remain confined to the shores of Great Britain since, once English had been established as an autonomous discipline, it could be exported to educate people in the colonies. Texts & the values they carried could be transmitted to other cultures and this 'cultural imperialism' became another way in which the dominant ideology of Englishness was naturalized and spread across the globe.

 

Georgian Poetry 1912-1930

* Georgian poetry is a good example of how literature played a role in the 'construction' of 'England' in the same way that Englishness is constructed, often based on an ideological position. 

Georgianism 'Georgian': it refers to "a new style popular and influential during the reign of King George V, 1910-36. Georgian poets tried to express everyday experience and to look at the world freshly. Politically, they tended to be Liberal. Georgians constructed an "England" and "Englishness."

Characteristics of Georgian poetry

1- A wish to locate value in nature, the pastoral2- Nature-as-spectacle3- English nature is the touchstone of beauty, of golden value4- English nature is invested with melancholy & nostalgia is the dominant emotion

All That's Past by Walter de la Mare

De la Mare constructs an England that is as old as nature and is immanently wise. He uses words such as 'Solomon' and 'amaranth' to 'universalize' England: English landscape, English wisdom, English 'Eden', English nightingales, English rose. This poem's imagery serves to construct a beautiful notion of wise England such as a people at war might find consolatory.

Of Greatham by John Drinkwater This poem was explicitly occasioned by the war.

Q What does the poem convey about England and Englishness? The war has somehow invaded the Sussex landscape. The poet has gone there seeking peace. He has found, literally, pastoral (shepherd) peace among grazing 'flocks'. However, this peace is short lived due to the thought of war, 'nations marketing in death' which ends his English peace. Englishness centers on a southern 'shire'. Englishness here is found in the rural English shire or town. 

Adlestrop by Edward Thomas This poem has a 'vivid particularity', which Drink water's lacks. 'The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat' in this line, the ordinary is made significant and even haunting. A dominant characteristic in this poem is 'nature-as-spectacle' * Summary: what both Thomas and Drinkwater seem to represent is a crisis in the English consciousness of 'England', mounting before the Great War. Both construct 'England' in terms of rusticity. Both are outsiders in actual rustic settings. Their love of the countryside, baffled by distance from it, expresses 'England' in terms of nostalgia.  The social background 'Of Greatham' and 'Adlestrop' evoke a countryside almost devoid of human activity, why? Possibly, due to socio-historical factors, such as industrialization; as a result, most British people lived in towns, and enclosures of agricultural land deprived agricultural workers of ancient communal rights and helped to drive many away. Therefore, the rural 'England' that Thomas and Drinkwater looked out upon was one of decaying traditions and dwindling agricultural population. 'Incomers' from the city brought with them an idealized view of rural life, seeing it as picturesque and peaceful backwater. They also imported their own interests and values, which were often entirely different from those of the original inhabitants.   Charlotte Mew & Edmund Blunden  'The Farmer's Bride' by Mew is only generically Georgian. It is not cozy or wistful. The bride's wildness is alien to human conviviality. She is problematical a human being behaving mad. Blunden's 'The Barn' demystifies the countryside, which Drinkwater and even Thomas, mystify and mist over. The poem begins with Georgian nostalgia, but goes on to describe the barn as full of 'blithe cheerful noise.' The poem is sturdy, not challenging; but not naïve or posturing.

Edward Thomas: Thomas redefines Englishness, although he was born in London, he is Welsh by allegiance. This 'strain' was present everywhere in his work. Moreover, it is clear in 'The Combe', which is far from being cozy. The dominant feeling here is one of being shutout from the core of English Britishness. The word black is of crucial importance to the poem. The brooks have black hollow voices. Like the combe, they are at odds with the sun and moon. The 'moon-white / nature-black' opposition was carried forward into human life.

W.H. Auden

Auden was known for his socially committed poetry. Many of Auden's poems of the 1930s illustrate the following tripartite structure: 1-Thesis (the desirability of private happiness) 2-Anti-thesis (the reality of public misery and oppression)3-Synthesis (a transformed public world that harmoniously incorporates private happiness)

The Malverns' by Auden: the poem is largely the speaker's debate with him self about his responsibilities towards the conditions of England.

Q What is the condition of England in the poem?

England is suffering from sickness, illustrated in two kinds of symptoms in the poem: social and psychological. Socially, there is the evidence of the industrial depression, the failure of socially productive practice and institutions and the widespread illusion that England is a protected special case. Psychologically, there is unhealthy preference for isolation and loneliness, an inability to love, or a misrepresentation of love's impersonal energy on behalf of love as a romantic escape from social awareness and responsibilities.

Q What is the solution to the problem?

The vague cure that the poet suggested, is that actions are required not poems.

Paysage Moralise by Auden

This poem includes no social, political or psychological detail; it is not a 'personal' poem and there is no mention of love, no historical survey, no evocation of imminent revolution. More tightly organized than any of his previous poems, while its language is evocative and metaphorical: Valleys, mountains, islands, and cities: each represents an aspect of a general human condition and the six stanzas play variations on their interrelations.

Auden and the Modernists

Auden's poetry is discursive and abstract rather than imagistic. Auden believed that poetry should warn and be truthful. He rejected the Modernists' insistent separation between poetry and a message, between art and the world of moral, political or social action.

John Betjeman

'Death in Leamington' establishes an English sense of identity.  The phrase 'Oh! Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness' is full of nostalgia and affection, which describes not simply a style of furnishing but a whole way of life. The poem is also about death but deciding whether it is serious or amusing is a difficult task. Some prefer to see it as amusing 'so as' to a rob death of its terrors.

'Slough' the town of Slough has been ruined by profit seeking developers who have built cheap houses and factories. The real England, as presented by Betjeman, is pastoral where the earth is allowed to breath and fresh food is allowed to grow.

Evelyn Waugh: Officers and Gentlemen

Waugh's novel deals with British involvement in World War II. Honor is a major theme in the novel.

The main character is Guy Crouchback, a shy man in his thirties from an old landed family, who has been married to a woman named Virginia but is now divorced. At the beginning of this novel, we find him outside his London club at the beginning of an air raid during the blitz after Dunkirk in late 1940. The end of the novel is set in the summer of 1941, after the withdrawal of the Allies from the island of Crete. The action takes place over a period of twelve months. At the beginning of the novel, Guy is waiting for a posting and he has some unfinished business from Men at Arms (the first of Waugh's war trilogy) he has to dispose of the belongings of the deceased Apthorpe to whom he made such a promise. This act presumably shows Guy's high-minded Englishness - he is keeping his promise to a deceased comrade.

- Some autobiographical elements: Waugh is Catholic like his character, but Waugh, unlike Guy, was happily married. Waugh, unlike Guy, was very unpopular with his men who would not obey his orders, whereas the divorced and unhappy Guy is a model officer in his handling of the 'ranks'.

- This novel seems to be an account of the life of the British officer class. There is no attempt to see army life from the point of view of the conscript or ordinary serving soldier. Ludovic perhaps comes close, but his eccentric and sinister character does not make him representative. Waugh's principal characters are all commissioned officers with a shared code of conduct and manner of speech

- The church and army are British institutions of intricate procedures, laws and structures, a complex set of relationships, which Waugh was fascinated by.

- Society of Men: Tommy Blackhouse and Guy have been friends for a long time, but Tommy is now Guy's commanding officer. They have also been married to the same woman, Virginia; a fact that bonds them: 'Men who have loved the same woman are blood brothers even in enmity'. Their friendship was on a 'plane rarer and loftier than normal human intercourse' Notice the emphasis on the world of men which excludes women altogether.

Waugh's interests in the novel include:

1- The limits of what one could expect to get way with2- Playing by the book3- Ceremonial activity and formality associated with regimental life4- The Halberdier officers order amid the surrounding chaos

Q What does Waugh mean by officers and gentlemen?

Gentlemen are men of 'chivalrous instincts and fine feelings; possessing good manners is normally the prerogative of belonging to a certain class. Officers come from a certain socio-economic class but not all officers will act like Gentlemen.

For example, in the novel, Miss Vavasour says, 'you are too trustful, Mr. Crouchback, you treat everyone as if he were a gentleman, that officer definitely was not. The old Mr. Crouchback, (Guy's father) is from an old landed gentry and is therefore socially superior to most of the other residents. He has values of a 'heroic quality' He is saintly, unworldly, and generous in his actions and his conduct is admirable. Comparing old Mr. Crouchback's high-mindedness to the owners of the hotel 'the Cuthberts' who are obviously from a lower class, explains their immoral nature.

Characters in Officers and Gentlemen

Guy Crouchback: sense of honor and purpose, background is impeccable, becomes disillusioned after he finds out that no one is to be trusted, especially the Priest in front of whom he performed his confession duties. The Priest turns out to be a spy for the Germans. The second incident, which shook Guy, is Ivor Claire's desertion. Guy thought Claire to be 'the fine flower of them all' For Guy, patriotism and honor are linked; to him, Englishness and "honor," fidelity," "truth," go together. Guy's honor, romantic code of loyalty, patriotism and unworldly chivalry are related to his masculinity, class, social position and national identity.

Ivor Claire: is certainly from the right socio-economic class, but he proves to be not a gentleman. He betrays his country by deserting the army.

Trimmer: originally a hairdresser; he has done Virginia's hair. Trimmer does not qualify as a 'gentleman' because of his social class and his behavior.

* The English class system is a 'naturalized ideology'. All in society collude in accepting the innate superiority of the upper classes, their 'natural' capacity for leadership.

* The idea of a people's war: Waugh's intention was to pour scorn on the idea of a people's war. It is certainly noticeable that the only two non-upper-class characters to receive attention are Trimmer and Ludovic, a joker and an eccentric, and there is more than a hint of contempt for 'ordinary people'

Gender in Officers and Gentlemen

Intensely male events, male bonding, maleness is seen favorably and positively. Female figures in the novel: Ivor Claire's desertion was engineered by Julia Stitch, who like Virginia, is in her own way a disruptive, anti-heroic figure. Honor is, according to Waugh, a male attribute, and it is not without significance that Ivor Claire is effeminate in manner.

Conclusion & Summary (very important)

It can be concluded that this novel subscribes to the ideology of Englishness, to see Englishness is an ideology, which is constructed by the powerful elements of English society, or what has been called the 'establishment'. Some of the characteristics of Englishness include being white, male, masculine, wealthy, belonging to the establishment, vigorous, active, honorable and a gentleman, but it is more important to be aware that this constructed ideology is used by the British establishment to keep those who do not belong (non-white, non-English, female, working class, etc…) under their control. It is an imperialist concept that is used not only to keep people under control by naturalizing this ideology inside Britain but also in the colonies and the rest of the world. It was hoped that this constructed and illusory 'superiority' of the English character would become a 'common sense reality', thereby making British colonization and control over other nations and peoples an easier task.

Introduction: gender and ideology

It is argued that gender could be seen as an example of a dominant ideology. Gender: has been defined as the cultural construction of concepts of femininity and masculinity, as distinct from the biological sex-male or female-we are all born with.

Althusser and feminism: the idea of a naturalized ideology

Althusser suggested that we should see ideologies not as we think, but as what we live. Life, in Althusser's view of it, is something determined by ideologies of which people are not always conscious. It is in this idea of unconscious determination-where Marx meets Freud - that the theory becomes relevant to feminism, since the very oppression of which women complain is a naturalized ideology. 

Ideology in this sense operates from the unconscious, rather than from the rational domain. It might be argued that feminists hardly need to reclaim the irrational; it is traditionally and often pejoratively thought of as a woman's sphere. But they have learnt to occupy that territory more unapologetically. If ideology is what we live, then if we also accept Freud there is inevitably an irrational domain to it.

Freud and feminism

Feminism provides a vivid and useful example. Patriarchal oppression was not - is not - a systematically conscious form of tyranny. That would be an ideology in the old sense. It was for so long diffused throughout social practices that it seemed natural and inevitable….What we can now identify as a prejudice used to seem natural: an ideological conditioning that allows the status quo to be perpetuated without too much rocking of the social boat. The concept of the unconscious mind implies a powerful critique of the idea that rational mental processes necessarily govern our thoughts and actions….we are in fact, driven by motives and experiences hidden in inaccessible regions of the mind, so the Freudian argument runs. The perception of the unconscious has allowed women to write about contradiction, ambivalence and silence.

Feminist Theory

Feminists are those who wish to expose and to challenge women's cultural and political disadvantage.

* The idea that formal, abstract thought is the male domain while emotional, personal thought is that Feminists have attacked the female domain in two ways:

1- The first it might be argued that the notion that a girl is born with a feebler capacity for theoretical logic than her brother is fundamentally misogynist and mistaken. These feminists claim equal access to these patriarchal territories, asserting women's right to the formulation of theory.

2. The second group distrusts the wish to compete with the voices of patriarchy. They have often preferred to try to develop their own varieties of language. French feminists have proposed the concept of a language that is not controlled by patriarchal law and, significantly, their idea of a feminine writing is a response to the masculine orientation of psychoanalytic theory.

Virginia Woolf and women's history

Woolf's A Room of One's Own ((1929): one of the most significant starting points in the history of modern feminism. A woman needs a room, a space of her own. Woolf's basic point seems to me a simple one, forcefully and persuasively expressed. Conventional histories have simply ignored women. A new kind of history, based on research undertaken by a new breed of academic woman, is called for, history that would disinter the forgotten lives of women buried in history.

Q Why have women been neglected by history?

Recording history is a masculine pursuit. This is grounded in women's long economic subjugation. Elaine Showalter argues that women writers who were famous in their own lifetimes are effaced from the records of posterity, therefore each generation of women writers has found itself, in a sense, without a history, forced to rediscover the past anew, forging repeatedly the consciousness of their sex

Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)

'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman'. There is, de Beauvoir insists, no such thing as a female nature, made up of essentially feminine qualities. Concepts of femininity are socially constructed, not biologically determined. The purpose of de Beauvoir's argument is to show how the subordination of women has become a universal phenomenon.

Virginia Woolf: Kew Gardens

This short story is an example of feminine ecriture because it is very different from the conventional or traditional narrative. Kew Gardens gives us a defamiliarised vision of the natural world: nature made strange, with an almost tropical vitality. Flowers in Kew Gardens are unnamed, uncontrolled, representing the uncontrolled energy of the natural world.

* Julia Kristeva argues that the quality of alienation and strangeness is a general feature of Woolf's language. There is an emphasis on colour and sensation, a spasmodic structure, perhaps a visionary aspiration in the final paragraph, might all be claimed for the story. In these ways, Kristeva's citing of Woolf as a source of 'women's writing' seems to be helpful. This story may well be understood, as Kristeva suggests, as a dance. Nevertheless, Kristeva's reference to colour is important too, for the story might also be seen as a picture.

Ernest Hemingway: The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Hemingway's characters typically represent male machismo and feminine submission. His work created a cult of tough, laconic masculinism in which war, and war-substitutes such as big-game hunting and bull fighting were seen as superior activities because they excluded women. Masculine language in Hemingway understatement that verges on silence has come to signify a certain kind of masculinity.

Three (or four) main characters:

- Big white British hunter (Wilson)- The failed American macho man (Mr.  Francis Macomber)- The American beauty (Mrs.  Margot Macomber)- A fourth character could be the lion

Hemingway describes the thoughts of Macomber, the white hunter and the lion, but not of Mrs. Macomber. Women, it is implied, are unfathomable, unintelligible. We see her from the outside; we are told what she sees and what Wilson supposes her to be thinking. However, we are practically given nothing of what she actually thinks and feels from within - and absolutely nothing during the crucial final paragraphs. Male critics have seen Mrs. Macomber as a femme fatale, the dangerous, unconscious woman.  When her husband becomes masculine, she pulls the fatal trigger and kills him because she fears losing her mastery over him. Wilson is the archetypal 'strong, silent type' Hemingway approves of him when he describes him as having a face that is red, white and blue, the colours of the British and American flags and machine gunner's eyes.

Gender and genre

To Cambridge Women by Virginia Woolf

Woolf asks what barriers prevented women from becoming poets? Woolf sees these barriers in social and economic terms. Woolf creates Judith Shakespeare who had the same talents as William, but simply did not have his advantages. Judith Shakespeare, argues Woolf, neither money nor independence, and her education was rudimentary: 'She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil'. Given that the poetic traditions of the day were firmly based on the illustrious precedent of the classics, what chance had she of making her way as a poet? Women were confined to the domestic sphere. What Woolf had to say about the buried gifts of Judith Shakespeare has become a recurrent theme of feminist literary scholarship.

Language and Gender by Kaplan

Kaplan points out that the Romantic reverence for nature has proved problematic for women poets. In practical terms, the wilder phenomena of nature were simply not as accessible to women as to their male counterparts. Long solitary walks over the moor and mountain were hardly feasible for women - particularly for mothers of small children.

Stevie Smith Stevie Smith was never quite content to remain within the boundaries of what was expected of a young lady of her generation. She did not marry, always earned her own living, and adopted an eccentrically unfeminine mode of dressing. In addition, she became a poet.  She distrusted the category of 'woman writer', feeling that what is best in a poet's work has nothing to do with gender.

Heaney: She looks at the world with a mental squint; there is a disconcerting wobble in the mirror she holds up to nature. The implications of Heaney's charge are familiar. Writing as a woman, Stevie Smith seems to lack the kind of resources that would have enabled her to treat major themes successfully.

* Larkin said: her writings are feminine doodling. It is worth thinking back, here, to what was said earlier about ecriture feminine. That disconcerting wobble that Heaney points to, the feminine doodling perceived by Larkin, might be seen as evidence of a Kristevan wholly female spirit at work in Smith's writing.

Stevie Smith's poetry

 In 'My Muse', Smith plays on the age-old tradition of male poets being inspired by a female muse. One feels that there is a sense of exclusion in the poem: Stevie Smith's Muse is 'out in the cold'. When she is happy, at one with herself, she does not write. Smith uses the tradition of the Muse, but it also derides it. If it is a mourning voice that we hear, isn't it a mocking one too? Stevie Smith may be writing as an outsider here, but it is a situation that isn't wholly to her disadvantage. It is perhaps her writing as an outsider that gives her the mental squint and disconcerting wobble in the mirror she holds up to nature that Seamus Heaney is talking about. In 'The Jungle Husband', Smith deconstructs the macho man image, showing how the man Wilfred is really weak and wimpy, and not a hunter at all. She uncovers the macho man myth by using humor (the needle of ridicule). In 'Thought about the Person from Porlock', Smith does not take the English canon quite seriously. Coleridge is presented here as being quite childish and far from being the great Romantic poet whom everybody respects. Coleridge is a poet of immense prestige and "Kubla Khan" is one of his most revered works. He does not seem to cut a very imposing figure in Smith's poem, weeping and wailing, 'I am finished, finished.'

Sylvia Plath: unlike Smith's humor, Plath's art has been described as "murderous, "disturbing," and "subversive." There is an obvious feeling of rage in her poetry. In one of her best-known poems, 'Lady Lazarus' she concluded:

Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd eat men like air

In her poem 'The Colossus' she is searching for her father; she is in search of a father figure, but the poem is about a life spent fruitlessly trying to put together the image of her father. The father, speech and cultural tradition coalesce into one massive, overwhelming, yet fractured image. The poem could be about the impossibility of locating her identity in the father figure. This obsession with the father figure could be autobiographical especially if we take into account Plath's own father's death when she was still a little girl and her need for him at that time.

In her poem 'Daddy' we encounter the "Electra complex," which is similar to the "Oedipus Complex" but in reverse. This poem is spoken by a girl with an Electra complex. Her father died while she thought he was God. Her case is complicated by the fact that her father was also a Nazi and her mother very possibly part-Jewish. In the daughter, the two strains marry and paralyse each other - she has to act out the awful little allegory once over before she is free of it. This exorcising of the 'Electra complex' is clear in the final lines of the poem:

There's a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through. The basic metaphor of her father as a Nazi is extended to include that subsequent father-figure, her husband; both are incorporated by a remorseless, fairy-tale logic into a multitude of evil, folklore images, the black man who bites 'my pretty red heart in two'; while the child-victim, metaphorically a Jew in the concentration camps, becomes a puppet glued together. The masculine identity is represented as fascist; the feminine is a victim; at the end, the feminine is able to rid her self of the oppressive masculine image of the father in resentment, anger, even murderous resolve.

Elizabeth Bishop: like Stevie Smith, she distanced herself from the feminism of the 1960s and after, and so far, she has attracted little feminist literary criticism.

The Fish: the language of this poem is descriptive. This is so especially for the first half of the poem down to 'It was more like the tipping / of an object toward the light'. The descriptiveness of the poem makes it sound almost neutral, but the possibility of an objective stance has already been undermined. The adjectives, 'battered and venerable and homely' in the opening lines of the poem suggest the vulnerability, the heroism and domesticity of the fish, with which the speaker later explicitly identifies. The poem begins as a celebration of catching 'a tremendous fish' but ends as an even greater celebration of its release. Not only does the speaker come to identify sympathetically with the fish as a victim, but also, more importantly perhaps, the poem ends by affirming that the utterly commonplace detail of the boat can be invested with beauty. The fish here can be a metaphor for woman.  Culture and Anarchy by Adrienne Rich

Rich believed in the idea of a community of women, transcending time and place in its shared ideals and desires. One poem from the collection called A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981), entitled 'Culture and Anarchy', deals with the experience of 19th century women. It is a long and complex poem. Some themes dealt with in this poem include domesticity and writing (typing at the kitchen table), political activism (pamphlets on rape, forced sterilization). Juxtaposition is a technique used to add to the effect of the poem and underscore the importance of the continuation of the woman's struggle across time and space.

The present is seen to coexist with a remembered and supportive past. The 'all-alone feeling' is countered by an acknowledged commitment to a shared life that makes 'Culture and Anarchy', in part, a love poem. But it is a love poem that contains more than a celebration of an individual relationship. It is crowded with names of the women who pioneered the beliefs that motivate Rich's work, women whose names and words are woven into her text.

The 'anarchy' in the title of the poem is perhaps related to woman's connection to nature, and the forces of nature are seen as being anarchic. These energies are associated with the repressed strengths of women that are the poem's central concern.