Essay Questions

What can you construe regarding the speaker in “Monologue at Nine A.M”?

The speaker acknowledges, “Living/ with him’s been fever from outset./for sixteen years I’ve sat/ and waited for things to get better.” The speaker’s marriage has been uncomfortable and faulty. She banked on the husband to change but he did not transform. The husband’s noticeable absenteeism suggests that their love-bond is already expired.

What can you deduce about the speaker’s situation in “Dead End” ? How does the deduction relate to the insinuations in “Monologue at Nine A.M”?

In “Dead End” the speaker writes, “Divorce me from this crap, this steady diet /Of Abuse with cereal, abuse/ With vodka and tomato juice.” Seemingly, omnipresent abuse is a fundamental constituent of the speaker’s diet. The incorporation of abuse in the diet deduces that abuse by her partner is ubiquitous in the speaker’s life. The supplication to be divorced from the diet deduces that the speaker has reached the ‘dead end’ of her tolerance of the partner. The assertions in “Dead End” are parallel to those in “Monologue at Nine A.M” for both of them submit that the woman is repressed in her marriage. Perhaps, the woman has withstood the abuse for sixteen years as hinted in “Monologue at Nine A.M.”