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To The Young Wife - PEA Paragraphs Analysis

The poem addresses a young wife, questioning if she is content with her life of servitude to her husband. She is expected to be satisfied with her small domestic realm and find purpose in cleaning and cooking. However, the speaker warns her that this "selfish, slavish service" will leave her with "no beyond," and encourages her to not be deceived into thinking this trapped life is her duty. The overall message encourages women to pursue their own passions and identities rather than restricting themselves solely to the home and role of wife and mother.

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521 views5 pages

To The Young Wife - PEA Paragraphs Analysis

The poem addresses a young wife, questioning if she is content with her life of servitude to her husband. She is expected to be satisfied with her small domestic realm and find purpose in cleaning and cooking. However, the speaker warns her that this "selfish, slavish service" will leave her with "no beyond," and encourages her to not be deceived into thinking this trapped life is her duty. The overall message encourages women to pursue their own passions and identities rather than restricting themselves solely to the home and role of wife and mother.

Uploaded by

Marié
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Young Wife – By Charlotte Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

1st PEA:
The author begins the following poem with a variety of
questions using the speaker which are to be discovered
throughout the piece. She addresses this poem to a young wife,
which is treated like a slave, not having the right of having an
opinion, or the right to speak up.
‘’Are you content, you pretty three-years’ wife?’’ The speaker
refers to the young woman as a pretty three-years’ wife, the
word ‘’pretty’’ having a different signification from the words’
natural meaning. She uses it to express her position, not as a
remark.
‘’Are you content and satisfied to live’’ She asks the wife if she
is ‘’content’’ or not with what the life has to give her.
‘’On what your loving husband loves to give,’’ the word ‘’loving
husband’’ is ironic, to show us the flaw of her husband, thus, it
goes without saying in antithesis with the word ‘’loving’’ and if
she is satisfied or not with the love and attention her husband
provides her with
‘'And give to him your life?’’ the indisputable fact that she
would give away her life for him.
The author makes it crystal-clear that in this wife’s life, and
inside the worlds of the other completely different women, a
woman ought to be content with what her husband wishes her
to receive and reciprocally she should offer him, her life.

2nd PEA:
In the following stanza, she is inquiring, the wife being made to
clean up the messes everyday, is happy to do so in the tiny
space that is her home.
‘’Are you content to reign in that small space’’ in addition to the
claustrophobic sense of the woman’s world that the author
creates, the speaker is also made to “reign,” .
‘’A wooden palace and a yard-fenced land ‘’ this home is
described as, “a wooded palace” that is surrounded by a “yard-
fenced land.” The ‘’palace’’ is enclosed even if it may have
woods on its property and it has the figurative meaning as she
was the ‘’queen’’ of this ‘’palace’’.
‘’With other queens abundant on each hand,
Each fastened in her place?’’ many different women are in the
same circumstance, each being entitled by the speaker as a
queen but treated as a slave. They are all, “fastened” in place,
just as she is and again, the word ‘’queens’’ is figurative,
showing us another perspective of their slavery, the impact
being powerful on the reader.
They may, only with the name rule over their ‘’kingdom’’ that
they cannot leave. Thus their world, is in fact the ‘’cage’’ of a
young woman.

3rd PEA
The woman’s life is being told by the speaker in these lines. All
her work, to clean the dirty things, to ‘’soil things clean’’ to
explain and try to make the reader understand, ‘’over what
world she is ruling’’.
‘’Are you content with work, — to toil alone,’’ the speaker is
repetitively asking her if she is ‘’content’’ with all the daily tasks
and life, trying to make her understand that the life she has
chosen is a trap she has entered all by herself.
‘’To clean things dirty and to soil things clean;’’
‘’To be a kitchen-maid, be called a queen,’’ she further refers
to the main character as a “kitchen-maid” yet her status are
perceived as the ones of a queen, nobody knows what truly
happened.
‘’Queen of a cook-stove throne?’’ the author is referring to her
as the ruler of a cook-stove throne, which has a deep impact on
the readers mind, this being a powerful epithet.
Her status is venerated only for her charm, not having the right
to be the person she wants, appreciated for her work and all
the care she is putting in her daily tasks.
4th PEA
In the last stanzas there is another confrontation between the
speaker and the reader. It is definitely not the wife’s duty to
stay there, trapped like a slave for her husband and not letting
her from pursuing her own passions, but “selfish, slavish
service.” She has bound herself to the home and is trapped
there.
‘’Be not deceived! ‘Tis not your wifely bond’’
‘’That holds you, nor the mother’s royal power,’’
‘’But selfish, slavish service hour by hour’’
‘’A life with no beyond!’’ because the woman, being trapped in
here, will have no future.
The meaning the author is trying to convey in this poem is by
trying to deal with all the explanations why a girl would take
into account herself, cornered in her own house being the slave
of her own life. The speaker desires to point out to the reader
that there's no reason, aside from those she creates herself, to
stay solely in her home. In fact, she is going to be a better
person, and her children can grow happier, both physical and
morally healthier if she would take time to be her herself.

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