Compare and Contrast 2 Poems

¶ … Linda Pastan's "Marks" and Marge Piercy's "The Secretary's Chant" use the medium of poetry to provide powerful social commentary. Their respective poems use vivid imagery to convey the constricted roles in which women find themselves: especially as wife, mother, and office aide. These roles are subservient and underappreciated. The women speakers in these poems receive no respect for their hard work. Although Pastan's and Piercy's poems focus on two different aspects of female roles, their poems both convey similar notions related to the subjugation and oppression of women.

Both "Marks" and "The Secretary's Chant" use metaphor to convey the central idea related to the oppression of women; for Pastan the metaphor is school grades; for Piercy the metaphor is office supplies. In "Marks," the speaker refers to the way her husband and children both grade her continually. She receives, for example, an "A" in "last night's supper," and a "B plus" in bed (lines 2; 4). The children also grade her, showing that the father is negatively socializing his children in to believing that women are simply domestic slaves that can be evaluated. Although the poet makes some commentary at the stupidity of school grading systems, as they inaccurately capture the true talents of the students, the main gist is that the woman speaker is being compared with a child. She is being compared with a child who receives all her validation from the outside world -- in the form of rigid grading systems. This metaphor helps to drive home the point that Pastan makes with regards to the oppression of women,. By including the children's "passing" grades, the poet also shows how patriarchal social systems are perpetuated by people passing down their values and gender norms to children. Piercy also uses an extended metaphor to convey her concept of the oppression of women. Instead of using school, though, Piercy uses the office environment. Because many women are trapped into serving men rather than leading them, the metaphor of secretary is as apt as the metaphor of children in school. The woman speaker in Piercy's poem laments the fact that she is so identified with her job, that she has ceased to be viewed as a human being. "File me under W / because I wonce / was / a woman," (lines 22-25). Her entire body has become office supplies, to the point where she is indistinguishable from them. Her hips are a desk, her head a "badly organized file," (line 10). Like Pastan, Piercy shows how strict gender roles inhibit a woman's personal development and personal empowerment. While Pastan's speaker is denigrated due to her receiving grades in school like a child; Pierchy's speaker is denigrated because she is treated and viewed like an object.

The two poems finish differently, sending different messages to the reader about what to do about patriarchy. Pastan finishes "Marks" with the ominous line, "Wait 'till they learn / I'm dropping out," (lines 11-12). The speaker is clearly asserting her desire and intention to leave her family. The reader sympathizes with the speaker, because her life seems terrible: being underappreciated and devalued by not just her husband but also her children. The fact that her children are also participating in the patriarchal structure, including her daughter, causes the speaker to make the difficult choice of dropping out. Just as school does not serve all students, domestic servitude does not serve all women. By "dropping out," the woman in Pastan's poem is making a political statement. She is practicing an act of civil disobedience. Readers will wonder how the speaker's family will be able to survive without someone to clean, clothe, and feed them. Faced with the absence of their personal household slave, the family might finally come to appreciate the woman. By dropping out, the speaker also paves the way for other women, and all readers, to make decisions that are self-affirmative. The speaker proves that all women -- indeed all people -- have a choice between succumbing to their proscribed roles or breaking free. The latter choice entails great risk. The former entails living in fear, resentment, and anger. In Piercy's poem "The Secretary's Chant," the speaker does not intend to leave her job. In fact, she seems to have become one with the profession because her entire body is an extension of the office. No longer a woman, the speaker is just another office supply. The reader feels angry, as does the reader of Pastan's poem. However, with Piercy's poem, the reader feels a sense of resignation. The speaker does not offer any way out, or way of "dropping out." Perhaps by telling her story, the speaker assumes that other women will wake up to the reality that their personal identity has been subsumed by the will of other people.