Figurative Language and Gender Themes in American Literature
This paper examines Marge Piercy's poem "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" with a focus on how figurative language — including simile, symbolism, and imagery — conveys vivid pictures of domestic frustration and gender inequality. The analysis traces the poem's central themes of women's roles and suppressed anger in mid-twentieth-century America. The paper then broadens its scope to consider how gender, society, and economics function in two canonical American novels: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, connecting each work's treatment of class and gender to its historical moment.
- Introduction: Figurative Language in Piercy's Poem: Piercy's imagery captures domestic exhaustion and female frustration
- Simile, Symbolism, and Imagery: Central Themes: Figurative language reveals gender inequality across America
- Gender, Anger, and Suppressed Emotion in the Poem: Poem conveys women's anger at unequal social expectations
- Gender, Society, and Economics in American Literature: Transition to broader comparative literary analysis
- Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: Realism and Economic Crisis: Depression-era novel exposes exploitation of poor Americans
- Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: Modernism and Gender Roles: Fitzgerald conservatively depicts male dominance and gender hierarchy
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper effectively grounds its analysis in direct textual quotations, allowing the figurative language to speak for itself before offering interpretation.
- It connects close reading of the poem to broader social and historical context, linking domestic imagery to real gender-role constructs in American society.
- The comparative move — extending the analysis from Piercy's poem to Steinbeck and Fitzgerald — demonstrates an ability to synthesize themes across genres and literary periods.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates thematic comparative analysis: it identifies a unifying concern (gender inequality and social expectation) and traces it across three distinct literary works spanning poetry, Depression-era realism, and modernist fiction. This technique allows the student to show how the same social tensions manifest differently across literary forms and historical moments.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a close reading of Piercy's poem, first examining how figurative language creates vivid sensory images and then unpacking the poem's central themes of anger and suppressed emotion. It transitions to a comparative literary discussion, addressing The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby separately, each under its own section. The conclusion of each literary discussion ties back to the overarching themes of gender, society, and economics.
Introduction: Figurative Language in Piercy's Poem
In the poem "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" by Marge Piercy analyzes the mundane, exhausting routine duties of a housewife and explores how women sometimes feel diminished due to the behavior of men. Although the speaker does not introduce herself as a homemaker, she tells the reader about one specific woman as an example that stands in for the feelings of all women. At the beginning of the poem, the author points out that dinners are being burned all over America. This not only gives the reader the central idea of the poem but also creates curiosity to read further and discover the reason.
In the next four lines, the author describes foods that are typically cooked in particular cities across the United States, painting a sensory and aromatic picture in the reader's mind. As the poem progresses, the author reinforces the issue by repeating and highlighting the same point, then adds another phrase: "women are burning / food they're supposed to bring with calico / smile on platters glittering like wax" (lines 6–8). This ironic statement creates an impression of a very "false" woman — like a mechanical puppet, or even the perfect, faultless "model mom" embodied by a character such as June Cleaver.
Simile, Symbolism, and Imagery: Central Themes
"Women are burning dinners all across America . . . steaks in Chicago, haddock in Providence, and it says, all over America, women are burning food they're supposed to bring with calico smile on platters glittering like wax" (Piercy, 2009). All of these statements compel the reader to think about the condition of women in society during this particular era. They invite discussion of gender-role constructs — the ways in which society formulates expectations for men and women — and invite comparison between those historical expectations and those of the present.
Despite the fact that conditions for women have improved considerably since the poem was written, important inequalities persist. Do men and women receive equal pay for equal work? Perhaps not. This suggests that women are still not treated equally, and that women are expected to shoulder a disproportionate share of domestic responsibility — even today — though this is not necessarily the case in every marriage and relationship. Society has not yet fully closed the gap between what is expected of men and what is expected of women.
References
Piercy, M. (2009). What's that smell in the kitchen. In R. Gwynn (Ed.), Poetry: A Pocket Anthology (6th ed., pp. 338–339). New York: Pearson.
Stevens, J. (n.d.). John Stevens — Marge Piercy: What's that smell in the kitchen. Retrieved from All Readable:
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