Example Poetry Precis
Penelope
In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.
Dorothy Parker, in her poem “Penelope” suggests that the burden of heroism is not only
adopted by the hero but also by those that support that hero. She develops this idea by first
alluding to Odysseus’s wife Penelope from The Odyssey in the title of the poem, by personifying
the sun and the breeze that led her husband on his journey, by using visual imagery when
describing Odysseus, by contrasting the image of him on his journey with her daily tasks, and
lastly, by using the symbolic bleaching of the linens of her bed as a reference to her chastity.
Parker uses these devices to contrast the hero from the supporter in order to illustrate the
constraints that society places on women. With a resigned tone, Parker both empathizes and
protests the social norms to her audience.