History...
Feminine Gospels
By Lauren Hylands, Lewes Burton-Bell, Summer Cowans,
Starter...
• LaLaLa Dooooo
*insert unicorn here*
History...
Relief
INTERNAL RHYME
Represents the
cycle of life
Mentioning of time, a measurement
of time and change.
- suggest discrimination of women
She woke up old at last, alone,
bones in a bed, not a tooth
in her head, half dead, shuffled
and limped downstairs
in the rag of her nightdress,
smelling of pee.
MONOSYLLABIC
Emphasising loneliness
CAESURA
Commas speeds up pace
VERB
Shuffled, limped
Use of verbs emphasises her
weak state:
- Lazy and slow verbs
- Meaningless
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
Emphasises weak state.
Societies weak perception of
women.
Old imagery,
reinforces ideas of
elderliness and her
weak state.
‘coughed’ wheezed’
‘gloves’ and ‘coat’- winterdark, cold, harshrepresentation of hardship of
female life?
Use of SIBILANCE –
repeated ‘s’ sounds
infer lazily doing
actions. Sibilance slows
down pace.
Old imagery- supports the elderly
female image- ideas of females
being around for the same time
as men- however have less
equality.
Slurped tea, stared
At her hand – twigs, stained glovesWheezed and coughed, pulled on
The coat that hung from a hook
On the door, lay on the sofa,
dozed, snored.
‘Stained’ suggest the
marks of life – all her
past experience
‘stained’ on her skin
- Link to ‘Map Woman’
Use of sluggish VERBS emphasis
her weak state – lazy and slow –
meaninglessness. Again
emphasising elderliness.
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
METAPHOR: ‘She was history’
(important quote) -connotations of
death (Past tense) – lived through
time  seen history  still lack of
female voice.
Ideas of females
living through time
but not being
physically noticed.
An onlooker to
history instead of a
valued participant.
She was History.
She'd seen them ease him down
from the Cross, his mother gasping
Experience what
men went throughfor breath, as though his death
WWII etc etc.
Was a difficult birth, the soldiers spitting,
spears in the earth;
Birth of modern society.
Perhaps relating to the
‘birth’ or new coming of
female acceptance in a
patriarchal society.
Refering to one of the
femisim waves?
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
Biblical reference to Mary, portraying ideas of
female importance. (Jesus and stuff) . His
importance in the growth of society effectively
over rules others participation in Bible. Links to
the Virgins Memo
been there
when the fisherman swore he was back
from the dead; seen the basilicas rise
in Jerusalem, Constantinople, Sicily; watched
for a hundred years as the air of Rome
turned into stone;
cities where religion spread 12 disciples
associated with men (lack of female presence.)
Repetition of ideas linking
to females watching
history and not being
noticed as much
compared to men.
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
Repetition of ideas linking to females
watching history and not being noticed as
much compared to men.
witnessed the wars,
the bloody crusades, knew them by date
and by name, Bannockburn, Passchendaele,
Babi Yar, Vietnam. She'd heard the last words
of the martyrs burnt at the stake, the murderers
hung by the neck,
Progression of time. Notes on constant
female presence that remains un noticed
in history.
*Note- as the poem progresses, so
does time.
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
Reference to Hitler?- misses the part of his
wife’s death.
Progression of time through the stanza’s.
Still not actively there, just an onlooker to
history- despite evident participation
seen up-close
how the saint whistled and spat in the flames,
how the dictator strutting and stuttering film
blew out his brains, how the children waved
their little hands from the trains. She woke again,
cold, in the dark,
Dark- alone, scared? Other connotations of
darkness.
The use of ‘in’ could suggest confusion.
*Note- annotate by hand. Say some stuff.
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
History...
‘empty house’- discrimination of women
slowly faded  idea of old ways being
destroyed  women may of gained
importance over time.
Perhaps not appreciated till she’s gone?
in the empty house.
Bricks through the window now, thieves
in the night. When they rang on her bell
there was nobody there; fresh graffiti sprayed
on her door, shit wrapped in a newspaper posted
onto the floor.
‘fresh graffiti’- disrespectwomen not appreciated or
given the respect they
deserve.
Feels out of place in modern society (perhaps
still hasn’t found her place) generations
have lost respect (reinforced by the quote ‘shit
wrapped in newspaper posted onto the floor’)
Follows the idea of generations loosing respect
for history or perhaps the ideas of the constant
disregard and disrespect towards females
Theme- Alienation and dislocation
throughout the ages.