Modern Romance: Reading "Queen Anne's Lace" Sarah L Klotz 12th Grade

In the early 1900s, a woman’s purity was viewed as her most important aspect. So much so that it effected society’s perception of her personality and subsequent treatment of her. It often was a deciding factor in marriage arrangements. In fact, if a woman had sex before she was married and garnered a reputation for such activity, it was very likely she would never be married at all. This societal construct does not matter to William Carlos Williams. In an astoundingly progressive action for his time, Williams declares his affinity for a traditionally impure woman in his poem "Queen-Anne’s Lace." Using symbolic colors, comparison to flowers, change of tense and coarse diction, Williams characterizes the rough and wild nature of his mistress.

The most obvious literary device Williams uses to describe the liberated nature of his mistress is the symbolism of colors. The one he most often refers to is white. This color is well know to symbolize purity and innocence. In the poem, Williams illustrates her body as being “not so white as / anemony petals” (1-2) and her “whiteness gone over” (20). Since the overall meaning is about her impurity, it is logical why the poet so often describes her symbolic lack of a white appearance. Again,...