Sunday, November 22, 2009

I Want You Women Up North to Know ...Continued

08_Lady_Sewing.jpg
http://www.elrelojdesol.com/pierre-auguste-renoir/gallery/images/08_Lady_Sewing.jpg

The "bourgeois poet" section is an odd shift in style. "Bourgeois" means middle class or relating toward mediocrity. The bourgeois poet could represent the average citizen, one who is in the middle ground having objectivity and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. This poet has a strong usage of metaphor. The first metaphor compares the sewing women's hands to the motions of gulls, then to lightening, then to a dance. Next the motions are compared to music, even her cough is put in a good light being "gay, quick, staccato", tremolo of pain.

The bourgeois poet then mimics the wage decrease for the women. Naming this as the reason for prostitution "for five cents (who said this was a rich man's world?) you can get all the lovin you want." The next line shows the desperate reasoning that the women have. "clap and syph aint much worse that sore fingers, blind eyes, and t.m." Clap is a slang term for gonorrhea and syph is short for syphilis. Therefore they are saying that s.t.d.'s aren't that much worse than the pain they put into the low wage labor of sewing so the money of prostitution seems worth the risk in their situation.

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