Degas’s
Laundresses
Kieran Cunningham and Madeline
McEwen
You rise, you dawn
roll-sleeved Aphrodites,
out of a camisole brine,
a linen pit of stitches,
away from you like waves.
You seam dreams in the folds
of wash from which freshes
the whiff and reach of fields
where it bleached and stiffened.
Your chat’s sabbatical:
brides, wedding outfits,
a pleasure of leisured women
are sweated into the folds,
the neat heaps of linen.
Now the drag of the clasp.
Your wrists basket your waist
You round to the square weight.
Wait. There behind you.
A man. There behind you.
Whatever you do don’t turn.
Why is he watching you?
Whatever you do don’t turn.
Whatever you do don’t turn.
See he takes his ease
staking his easel so,
slowly sharpening charcoal,
closing his eyes just so,
slowly smiling as if
so slowly he is
unbandaging his mind.
Surely a good laundress
would understand its twists,
its white turns,
its blind designs--
it’s your winding sheet.
Vocabulary
 Aphrodite- goddess of love and beauty
 Camisole- a short negligee jacket for women
(www.merriam-webster.com)
 Brine- water saturated or strongly impregnated with
common salt
 Sabbatical-a break or change from a normal routine
 Clasp- A fastening, such as a hook or buckle, used to hold
two or more objects or parts together
Inarguables
 Context:
 Similar to other poems: 7 stanzas
 Written in second person narrative
 This poem is about the painting by Edgar Degas, “Laundresses
carrying linen in town”
 Boland believes that art is restricting life- “I think there is a very
real way in which art can fix and restrict life”
 Speaker: Boland herself or 3rd person narrator she created for
the purpose of this poem
 Audience: The laundresses in the painting
 The speaker speaks directly to them in stanza 4
Arguables

Key points


She is pointing out that Degas’ poem has a clichéd, stereotypical way of portraying
women.
Boland is warning the laundresses of the painter and how he is invading their privacy by
exposing a moment of lighthearted innocence to scrutiny.


Most pivotal lines

“staking his easel so, slowly sharpening charcoal”


Portrays Degas as threatening (preparing weapons)
The last line of the poem


Shows this by mood (see literary features)
Thank god it’s over
Most puzzling lines

“Whatever you do don’t turn.” in stanza 4

If she feels that it is a negative portrayal of women to be subservient and defenseless and
have stereotypical roles, wouldn’t she want them to turn around and see the man who is
using them, for what he is?
Literary Features
 Allusion to clichéd portrayal of women:
 Aphrodite
 Word Choice: using words that elicit a sense of smell, making the painting
seem more alive. (connecting to Boland’s negativity toward the way art
restricts life)
 Word choice: shows her view that the painting shows a stereotypical view
of women’s role in life
 Seamstresses, washerwomen, defenseless, subservient
 Ominous/Foreboding Mood:
 Using sense of time in the 5th stanza to show suspense, making it seem like the
painter is being invasive and invading the privacy of the laundresses.
 Boland contributes to the foreboding mood, like something bad is going to
happen, with her staccato rhythm in the 4th stanza. This accentuates the literal
meaning of the words.
Bibliography
 "Eavan Boland's Feminist View of a Degas Painting, Page 2
of 4." Associated Content from Yahoo! Associatedcontent.com. Web. 06 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/40271/eavan_
bolands_feminist_view_of_a_degas_pg2.html?cat=38>.
 My dad