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suburban matron, proper in the supermarket

Page history last edited by Tara Bigdeli 14 years ago

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The first example of a "deceiver" (1) that the poetic speaker gives us is the image of the "matron" (2). This image clearly conjures the picture of a mother-figure or a married, domestic woman. She is a "suburban" (2) woman, which contrasts with the idea of an urban, career woman. Here we see this character doing one of her wifely duties of grocery shopping. The speaker attaches the adjective "proper" (3) to the woman. It gives the idea that either she or the speaker believes that this is where she supposed to be, doing what she is supposed to be doing. Also, she is in the "supermarket" (3), instead of the local market, a much smaller, more intimate setting. At a large store like this, this woman has the opportunity to have more anonymity. Given the tone of the opening line of the poem, it appears this woman is the picture of the perfect, domestic wife, but she is one of the "deceivers" (1). 

 

-Tara Bigdeli

 

 

Comments (1)

Tonya Howe said

at 1:51 pm on Mar 26, 2010

This is a good annotation, Tara! I like how you tease out all of the implications of the word "proper." I wonder what else you can say about the "supermarket"? She's not at a local market, for instance--what do we see when we think of "supermarkets"? You might also give a little more context--perhaps one sentence--to help your readers see where/why this image is occurring in the poem, which will also make a nice frame with your conclusion sentence. Are there any other annotations you can link to?

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