‘To the Indifferent Women’
The poem ‘To the Indifferent Women’ begins on a conversational tone addressing women as a collective unit. The poet clearly delineates the private and public spheres foregrounding the conventional prevalence of women in the closed private homely domains. The poet however introduces the element of monotony and boredom through the words ‘overworked’ and ‘dumb’ which imprisons the women and compels them to remain cordoned from the more challenging demands of the outside world. The first stanza ends with a rhetorical question exhorting these women to question the patriarchal norms and asking them to widen their spheres of knowledge. The reference to ‘sin’ and ‘sorrow’ refers to the political and social upheavals which categorically marginalize feminine interventions.
The next stanza asks these women to transgress these boundaries defined by the male dominated public sphere. The use of the word ‘little’ is not a derogatory reference to the limited world of home and hearth which defines a woman’s life. Rather, it slights the manner in which patriarchy diminishes its significance. The speaker addresses the woman’s need to expand this so called ‘little’ world and incorporate the toils and progress concerning men in the outer world. There is a continued repetition of the word ‘sorrow’ underscoring the imaginative expansiveness which women innately possess. Every woman needs to see herself as a human extending her love and care beyond the restricted realm of her private existence. The woman is seemingly depriving the world of the love and care which she can naturally bestow on the rest of humanity. The speaker asserts the need to expand this world and embrace the rest of humanity in its loving care.
Finally the speaker expresses the need for a world which will transform into a new world where women can collaborate unrestrained contributing equally with the men. We find in this poem elements of a utopian world envisaged in Herland. The words border on criticism to a certain extent (‘selfish homes’); as the women complacent in their small protected world refuse to engage in discourses of greater relevance for the benefit of society at large. The poem wishes to initiate a more meaningful engagement between the private and public binaries. By entitling the poem ‘To The Indifferent Women’ she is ironically pointing to the manner in which women remain unaware of the tumults besetting the socio-political domains in the outside world. This is an outcome of the continual silencing of women which has been successfully implemented as the women culturally indoctrinated in self effacement remain complicit in their own marginalization.
'Locked Inside'
The metaphor of closed doors gives a startling start to the poem ‘Locked Inside’. The desire to break free is counteracted by the ‘weak hands’. The poem like the previous one ‘To The Indifferent Woman’ is a clarion call to women who have become willing endorsers of their own weakness. A moment of desperate struggle is inevitable for women who need to disengage themselves from their own inhibitions. This disassociation entails a painful response to her dreams. Painful because she might be betraying the patriarchal codes of conduct while doing so. The final stanza is epiphanic in its sudden discovery of her miseries; ‘'Your door, O long imprisonéd,/Is locked inside!' Resonating with the woman’s self propelled desires to break free the poem ends on a positive note of self-realization.
'Boys Will Be Boys'
Gilman begins with the long cherished gender stereotypes. The acts of ‘mischief’, ‘carelessness’ and ‘noise’ have been overlooked over the years as they have been natural extensions of boyish behavior. The boys seem to have got away with missed duties and damaging wild acts by socially constructed behavioral paradigms. Althusser’s concept of interpellation becomes very relevant here as he pertinently points out how our identities are predetermined by the social structures in which we are born. The poem richly resonates with Beauvoir’s - “One is not born but becomes a woman”. Gilman in her prophetic redress of gender biases states with a note of finality ‘Now, women will be women’. She sees woman’s instinctual desires for nurture and love as a fitting antidote to boisterous youth. The poem however evokes the male/female binaries and consolidates gender roles by foregrounding the role of women as mothers and nurturers.
The poem paints the monotonous duties that housewives undertake to keep the household structure intact. Their duties are time bound, exacting and arduous. The poem meticulously works out the ennui of a housewife’s cloistered world. The repetition of words like soiling and cleaning reinforces the seeming inescapability of her situation.This painfully closed world is cleverly disrupted by the interjection of the phrase- ‘And I the Mother of Nations!’ The poet interrupts the private claustrophobic world by the sudden realization of the housewife that she is the mother of nations and not just a mother to languish in oblivion. The ironic rejoinder in the end – ‘each with a housewife’s brain’- shows the perpetual reenactment of socially constructed gender roles.
'We As Women'
The women as Gilman points out should not fall into the trap of being idealized as godly creatures about to lift humanity. By invoking the mystifying rhetoric of womanhood as a larger-than-life-construct, men dehumanize the women. The women have to see through this manipulative logic of patriarchy and continue with their services as humans rather than celebrated entities. The culturally sanctioned gender stereotypes romanticize women and push them into idealized categories. Gilman counters this forced construct and urges women to shed the garb of ‘feminine innocence’. Women need to see the world as it is in all its shades of impurity and imperfection and restore the much needed ‘strength and courage and wisdom to help and feed’. The need to lift the world should not be propitiated by the men for their own ends. The women can lift the world on their own terms.
