Julia Alvarez "Woman's Work"

Julia Alvarez's poem "Woman's Work" explores the nature of female gender roles and their impact on the mother-daughter relationship. The poet employs rich imagery, internal and end rhymes, and alliteration to convey the central theme and tone of the poem. Through such poetic devises, Alvarez paints a rich portrait of the conflict inherent in gender roles and female identity.

The rhyme scheme of "Woman's Work" follows an ABA format for the first five stanzas. In the sixth and final stanza, Alvarez adds an extra verse; the last two lines thus have ending rhymes much like a Shakespearean sonnet would. Moreover, each line has ten beats, or syllables as many sonnets do. The sonnet-like structure hints at the underlying message of love that pervades the mother-daughter relationship.

'Woman's Work" is told from the first-person perspective of the daughter, who uses the main metaphor of art to describe a woman's work. In the first stanza, the daughter describes her mother's work as "high art." She would "Keep house as if the address were your heart," (line 3). However, by the end of the second stanza, woman's work is "hard art." The shift in tone mirrors the daughter's conflicting emotions regarding her mother and their collective female "artwork."

Ancillary images used throughout the poem include scrubbing the bathroom tiles and shining the tines of forks. For the latter image, the poet employs internal rhyming, with the words "shine" and "tine," (line 10). Lines 9 and 11 include alliteration to emphasize the artistic nature of the mother's duties: "housebound heart" and "lacy lattices" are phrases that contribute to the overall lyricism and rhythm of the poem.

At the end of Alvarez's poem the daughter notes that although she did not "want to be her counterpart," she followed in her mother's footsteps. Alvarez's repeating the rhyming words "heart" and "art" emphasize the central metaphor of the poem; the poet's choice of diction also underscore the simultaneous sensations of love and pain than accompany a woman's work as well as the mother-daughter relationship.

Works Cited

Alvarez, Julia. "Woman's Work."