“Woman
Work” Maya Angelou
Thesis: Through the use of a shift in rhyme scheme,
Angelou contrasts what the woman has to do with what she wants to do.
Maya Angelou uses a couplet
rhyme scheme to begin the poem and transitions to four-lined rhyme scheme. The
poem begins by listing off all of the things that the speaker has to accomplish
in a very formulaic fashion: “I’ve got the children to tend/ The clothes to
mend/ The floor to mop/ The food to shop” (1-4). The woman has many chores to
tend to, and by having the rhyme scheme be so quick, it emphasizes the length
of the list. Every two lines rhyme, so the audience hears the beat of rhyme
after rhyme, giving this impression of a never-ending list. Then at line
fifteen the rhyme scheme shifts as does the content of the poem. The speaker is
no longer talking about her duties but what she actually wants. She proclaims, “Fall gently, snowflakes/
Cover me with white/ Cold icy kisses and/ Let me rest tonight” (23-26). The
woman wishes for nature to just take over. She needs a break; she needs refuge.
She believes that with nature she can find it. The rhyme scheme slows down by only
rhyming the second and fourth lines of each stanza, showing that what she wants
is much less than what she needs to do. Nature is not a laundry list; it is
something to stop upon and enjoy.
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