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Be Nobody's Darling-Copy

Alice Walker's poem 'Be Nobody’s Darling' explores themes of individuality and non-conformity from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the strength of femininity. The poem encourages women to embrace their contradictions and independence, challenging societal norms that dictate female dependence on men. Through her choice of words and literary devices, Walker conveys a powerful message about the importance of self-acceptance and empowerment for women.

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Ayesha Zaki
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32 views3 pages

Be Nobody's Darling-Copy

Alice Walker's poem 'Be Nobody’s Darling' explores themes of individuality and non-conformity from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the strength of femininity. The poem encourages women to embrace their contradictions and independence, challenging societal norms that dictate female dependence on men. Through her choice of words and literary devices, Walker conveys a powerful message about the importance of self-acceptance and empowerment for women.

Uploaded by

Ayesha Zaki
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Analysis of ‘Be Nobody’s Darling’


from feminist perspective
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Alice walker is a very famous feminist writer who portrays insights of African
American culture and most importantly she focuses upon women and their conditions in the
society; in her poems, short stories and novels. ‘Be Nobody’s Darling’ is one of her famous
poems in which she had used a very strong vocabulary in respect of message portrayal. She
also made use of so many important literary devices in her poem which also reflects her
messages more strongly. The main message or idea which this poem gives is about the
individuality of a person whether male or female.

If we look at this poem by Alice Walker from feminist perspective then we can clearly
see that this poem is the embodiment of meaninglessness of social and sexual conformity.
This poem strongly supports people especially women who are non-conformist to the
societal norms and values. It also points out femininity as a strength rather than a weakness
which one should be proud of having and the poet also highlights its importance.

For feminist analysis of the poem, if we just consider the choice of words by the poet
we can clearly see that how she has made use of words which are feminine in nature to
highlight the hidden message of femininity. Firstly in the name of the poem itself, the word
‘darling’ is something which is not truly feminine in nature but it is surely a word that men
usually use to pet females. She also asks the women to,

“Take the contradictions


Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.”
Here the word shawl has been used as a symbol which symbolizes comfort, safety or
protection in traditional terms. The word shawl is also feminine in nature because it is
something that women wear in order to keep themselves safe and protected from the
external environment/danger i.e. from men’s visibility. Here , in these words the poet has
used this word in reference to contradictions of life. She says and encourages women to take
all the problems and contradictions of their life as a shawl. Just like shawl - that women wear
to make themselves feel warm and comfortable – one should also take the contradictions of
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their life in such a way that it could make them and stronger and bolder that they feel
themselves at ease (from parry stones) in the society just as they feel after wearing shawls
around their shoulders.

Not only this, but Alice Walker also encourages and supports women independence
by saying that “be pleased to walk alone”. In the society of 1990’s when Alice Walker wrote
this poem, this was not the tradition for women to walk (live) all alone because they always
were in need of some male support because of the patriarchal male dominant society and
not only during that time but this idea is still prevalent in our society that women don’t feel
themselves at ease without having any male support behind them. But Alice Walker
supports this idea of being alone without any conformity with the societal norm of having a
support. This shows that how she supports female independence in the society and
non-conformity of females with the “river beds” (societal norms).

In a nutshell, we can say that she poem is highly feminist in nature due to its themes,
choice of words and the way Alice Walker presented her ideas.

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