My Analysis of Among Women by Marie Ponsot.

Estamos en el mes del amor, ay Dios mío que bonito! We are in the month of romantic "love,"  for this reason, I decided put one of the most powerful poem that I have ever read in my entire life. Yes, my entire life! "Among Women" by Marie ponsot.

               Throughout history in many societies, women always have been in unequal systems where society imposes stereotypes and absurd rules on them. As a result, this unequal system makes women feel that they have to lose their freedom in order to love freely. This is exactly what Marie Ponsot shows in her poem “Among Women.” Marie Ponsot demonstrates the way that women should love freely and how important it is to recognize this freedom; Ponsot develops this poem with hyperboles and paradox which highlight feelings and add special features to her characters. The meaning of loving freely is deeper than what it seems. In this poem, the author shows how the speaker’s grandmother wanted her granddaughter to learn her right to this freedom to love or not to love whomever she decides.
               The poem begins with the speaker questioning in general terms “What women wander?”.  “to wander” means to walk around slowly in a relaxed way, without any clear purpose or direction. Therefore, the reader can assume that the poem is about something negative; who would want to walk in any direction without an objective? However, the question  refers to more than the literal dictionary definition of the word. Why should women always walk with a purpose, or why not? The author is not only referring to walking, literally, but is referring to how women choose to live their lives and make their life choices, including whether or not to fall in love, settle down, have a family, and do all the things women traditionally do. Those women who “wander” could be understood as women who choose not to go down this traditional path, but instead make other choices about where they want to go in their lives. Then, the second line answers the speaker’s question of “what women wander” with  “Not many. All. A Few.” This means that only a few women actually make the choice in their life to “wander”, or to love freely who their choose (or choose not to love at all). The tone in this line lets the reader know that not many women can wander, or they choose not to. Not many women can love freely - just a few. Why not?
           In the next two lines the speaker shows the reader that she is a women and she feels the need wander too, which means to love with freedom. The speaker says “Some, and I’m one,” marking herself as one of the women she is describing. Moreover, she is “Wandering sitting still”, meaning that even when she is not actually out in the world wandering, or loving freely and making choices about her life, she is “wandering while sitting still”. This means that even when the speaker is not actively participating, she is still thinking about wandering, and daydreaming about it. This makes the reader imagine that the speaker has a great desire to “wander,” or to love freely, and this takes up all her mental and emotional energy, even when “sitting still.”
             In line 7 the speaker makes a reference to her grandmother. The speaker says “My small grandmother,” this is used to describe a person, it can mean “young,” but clearly, her grandmother is not a young person. However, it could be that the author was referring to when her grandmother was younger, as she describes many of her grandmother’s life choices and how she chose to love. The word “small” could also bring to mind a negative connotation, like “less than,” but in fact the author could be using this as a paradox. In fact, her grandmother was great and wise, and taught her many things. Saying “my small grandmother” could be a way to say “my wise grandmother”. After line 7, the speaker says that her grandmother “..Bought from every peddler.” “Peddler” is a word that in the past meant someone who sold things house by house. But why did the speaker’s grandmother buy from each seller? Then the speaker says “..Less for the ribbons and lace;” the grandmother bought from the peddlers, not because of what they sold, but because of their “scent” - referring perhaps literally to the smell of men she found attractive, but more figuratively referring to the “scent” or the air or feeling of the freedom she felt being with the peddlers. When the speaker refers to “ribbons and lace,” she is also bringing to mind the image of the traditional women of the time, who were only supposed to busy themselves with feminine, domestic concerns like sewing, and making themselves look beautiful and attractive with “ribbons and lace” for other men, in order to achieve their ultimate life goal of catching a good husband and settling down. However, the reader is reminded that for those women who chose to “wander,” like the speaker’s grandmother, they were not concerned with ribbons and lace, but rather with the peddlers themselves and their “scent” of freedom.  Thus, the grandmother likes buy thing from each peddler just for the fact that she likes feeling free, and this is represented by the “scent.”.  In these four lines is where the hyperbole starts, and the author starts to show the most significance of this poem.
                 In line 10 the speaker says, “..Of sleep where you will” which is still part of the last sentence because in line 10 there is no period. The grandmother reminds her granddaughter to feel something that she wants, or “Of sleep where you will;” in other words, sleeping where she wants, with who she wants, or alone if she so chooses. She says  “Walk out when you want,” urging her granddaughter to be in control of her own life and her path, doing the things she wants, rather than settling down just because this is expected of her by societal expectations. Thus the grandmother is telling the speaker not to feel afraid to wander in life; to be free; to love freely. Therefore, she says  “..choose Your bread and your company,” which means to choose whatever thing you want to choose, or the men that you want or choose the women that you want to choose. Love freely.
           The speaker remembers that her grandmother warned her, “Have nothing to lose.” That means not to be afraid of taking a risk, and knowing that even if it does not work out, she will be okay. In other words, the grandmother is letting her granddaughter know that if she loves freely and this love disappoints or mistreats, she can leave him/her. Do not feel afraid, and feel the same “scent” of freedom that the grandmother felt when bought from the peddlers.
     In the next paragraph in the line 14, the speaker starts to remember who her grandmother was, and she says,”She looked fragile but had High blood, runner’s ankles.” This is a description of a woman who appears to be vulnerable, but life has taught her to be strong. She may look “fragile” on the outside, but she is full of inner strength and wisdom. For this reason the grandmother “Could endure, endure.” This means she could bear suffering. The reader also knows that this line is very significant because it is the only place where the author repeats. She says the word “endure” twice, meaning that she really endured, and makes the reader imagine all the things she may have suffered and overcome in life. The reader understands the author’s point that her grandmother was the strongest person, not fragile.
          Therefore, the grandmother “Loved her rooted garden,” and “..her Grandchildren” instead of loving a man. The grandmother decides to love freely, who she chooses, her family, instead of the stereotype that society imposed upon her. She wanted that the speaker to feel free to do the same. However, this does not mean she never fell in love, or was incapable of loving a man. In the line 19 the speaker tells the reader that her grandmother once loved a “Wild man.” With the word “wild,” the author is saying that grandmother once loved someone who was a wanderer like her. However, things with this love, this “wild man” may have gone wrong, so the grandmother chose instead to love her garden, and her grandchildren. Whereas society may have forced women to stay with their husbands and settle down no matter what, the grandmother was a wanderer, and loved freely the people and things that made her happy. In addition, the poem ends in the same way it starts, in general terms, with the speaker saying,  “Women Wander As best they can.” Here is the only place where the author uses a rhythm with “man” and “can,” adding extra emphasis to this line in the poem. Here, the author is conveying her main point in the entire poem, using rhyme as a tool to draw readers’ attention to this point.
        Finally, Marie Ponsot creates a poem with a complex issue, using an intergenerational relationship between a wise woman “the grandmother,” and her granddaughter, a figure that many readers can relate to, no matter where they are located in history. Using the wisdom the grandmother passed down to her granddaughter, the author is trying to pass along a message to her readers to show that one does not need to suffer the expectations that society puts upon women, but that they should choose to love freely, just as the grandmother chose to love her family and her garden instead of a love who can hurt her. Women can love with freedom or decide not to love. Women can wander.

My Analysis of “The Scar” by Jane Dotchin

“The Scar,” written by Jane Dotchin, tells a brief but meaningful encounter of destiny, when two people find each other a long time after an accident has marked their lives. Dotchin describes what is going on in the present, and adds flashbacks to describe the accident that happened in the past. In the past, the narrator - we never learn the gender of the narrator - was playing with his or her brother when he or she accidentally drowned in a swirling whirlpool in a river. Dotchin tells how the mother rescues the narrator and gives him or her “the kiss of the life” to save the narrator’s life. The narrator’s brother tells him/her that he/she looks like “..an astronaut floating in space” as the narrator was floating underneath the water, because practically the narrator was close to death until the mother saves his/her life. Her child’s near-death event marks the mother’s life, so she decides put her child in swimming class where the narrator meets the coach for the first time. The coach has his own style to educate new swimmers, which helps students to learn in a “funny” way and get rid of their fear. Unfortunately his own style brings death to narrator’s mother. Now, in the present day some 15 years later, they are together in a waterfall exploring the fear of the coach, who does not realize that the narrator never forgot his face, and of course never forgot that he accidentally led to the death of the narrator’s mother. Subtly the narrator takes the coach to explore his own fears without telling him who he/she is or that they know each other from the past. In the end, the coach finds out that they know each other and that the narrator is that child who lost his/her mother in a fatal accident, for which the coach feels responsible. 

The theme of this tragic story is how human beings feel the necessity to blame others in their grief, even when there may be no one to blame, and how at the same time, they are able to forgive. However, to find this forgiveness, human beings need to go through some steps. First, in the story the narrator feels angry and feels that the coach is guilty of the mother’s death all those years ago. “Fifteen years changes a seven- year-old a lot more than a forty-year-old” and then says” I recognise him but he doesn’t me,” like he/she requires that the coach recognise him/her because the narrator knows that the coach would feel terrible. Second, the narrator needs to see fear in the coach, and for this reason he/she brings the coach through a difficult pathway in the waterfall unnecessarily. The narrator justifies this action and says “I am not sending him the easy way. It's not exactly dangerous, but it's unnecessary to go through the fall” and “I send him that way because it’s more of a thrill.” The narrator needs to see coach afraid, just like when he/she was in that pool as a child because now the characters are inverted; the narrator is the coach and the coach just a mortal human learning something like the narrator was before, with a bit of fear and excitement. The narrator gives coach encouragement to continue like the coach used to give the narrator encouragement when he/she felt afraid of swimming in the other side of the pool. The narrator is waiting for this moment, and he/she says, “It’s a perfect moment” and “He is smiling” to describe how the narrator feels “it is the perfect moment” to make the coach feel miserable, just after his excitement and happiness of conquering the waterfall; perhaps he does this because he still blames to coach for what happened, and wants him to feel what he/she felt those years ago, and probably still feels. Third, the step of the forgiveness comes just when the narrator has gone through these feelings, which we can infer because of the way the story ends. The narrator bundles coach up and they are sitting, “holding hands, tight” while they are looking down to the pool feeling pain for the unfortunate events. This makes us feel that both are lost, because they are traumatized but at the same time, they win. I feel that the narrator forgives the coach even though they will live with this memory for the rest of their lives. 

The story is presented by first-person narration, which helps the reader to feel more that the reader is witnessing a personal event, as if we were living the story. This may also be one reason why we never learn the gender of the narrator, so that it may be easier for readers, male and female, to feel identified with this character and be able to see the story through the narrator’s eyes. The story does not have a chronological plot because the author brings us the narrator’s past with flashbacks, which constantly show us where and why the two characters met for the first time, and why the narrator never forgets the coach. Even though the plot is not chronological, the plot helps the reader understand what happens and why. In addition, the plot gives a rich characteristic of the two principal characters and the way the coach teaches, which is important to know in order to understand why the narrator acts the way he/she does in the waterfall. The scenes from the past which are lived as flashbacks are often mirrored in the present, but with the roles of the characters inverted - the narrator becoming the coach and the coach becoming the student. For example, the young narrator wins a medal for swimming 25 meters, and the coach climbs the 25 meter waterfall. This also points to how people can repeat cycles of trauma, especially when one has not forgiven. The author describes two settings, one in the past and the other in the present. In the present they are in a waterfall, referred to in the story as “scar”, which is a symbol is of the narrator’s pain and suffering. Also, through all the story the author uses the duck as a symbol which denotes maternal care, which was the reason why the mother died, and the trauma that the narrator has after the loss of his/her mother. The way that Dotchin describes the setting and the comparison that she uses helps the reader to understand more clearly what is going on in the story. The literary language that Dotchin uses was amazing, such as the way she describes someone who has drowned is very creative and subtle.  

In this literary piece, it is very interesting how Jane Dotchin describes two scenes which enrich this wonderful story because she makes a connection between two times of life without confusing the reader. Even though the story is very sad, the way she describes it makes it a wonderful piece of literature. Therefore Dotchin brings the reflection of how a mother gives everything for her children, but also she brings clearly how someone can be affected by death and tries to look for guilt or blame, but in the same way can find forgiveness in murky waters. Therefore, the author closed the story with “the water coils and boils into the whorls from the pouring waterfall,” but they are together holding hands looking this water. 

The story “The Scar” gives a reflection of life, of loss and how it is important to confront grief, anger, and trauma, and move toward forgiveness in order to learn to live with it. Sometimes it is not possible to erase these things that happen, and even when there is someone to blame, it would often not make up for what was lost - just like coach could not bring the narrator’s mother back to life. However, people carry these scars around and learn to conquer them, just as coach conquered the “scar” of the waterfall by climbing up it with the narrator’s help. Many things in the past flashbacks in the story were reflected later in the present scenes, a way of showing that people carry around these scars even years later, and sometimes repeat stories again and again as a way of trying to process them. This story’s ending, where both characters sit down together supporting one another, is a poignant ending that gives the reader hope that they will indeed heal their scars and learn to live life with them.