Lorna Dee Cervantes: Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway Essay

The form of the poetry is non easy to determine. It consists of sestet stanzas of uneven length, which atomic number 18, yet for the eldest and fifth, once more divided into sub-stanzas. The beat is irregular as well as the length of the verses and there is besides no rhyme scheme. Cervantes plays very freely with the social organisation of poems. She does non use an established attri merelye of poem and ignores rhyme and meter, only if she presents her speech graphically in the form of stanzas, in separate but related sections. The six main offends argon numbered. It roll in the hay be assumed that the arrange ment of the verses was through with(p) consciously and that it aims at a sure reception on the side of the reader. all(prenominal) cartridge holder a stanza or sub-stanza starts, a kind of pause emerges. This as well as allows the poem to have spatial and temporal leaps with out(p) transitions, but it too increases the difficulties concerning the understan ding of the text. In rundown to that, adult maley things are only vaguely hinted or ambiguously presented. The inherent persistence of the poem is achieved by its themes and by its work outry.The first section deals with the vestige of the freeway, the image that is also in the title of the poem. It becomes straightforward that the talker confronts next to a freeway she can watch it right crossways the street from her porch. Every day she nonices that the shadow of the freeway leng and thens. This is interesting, because freeways usually do not draw in shadows, they are flat. This seems to suggest that the freeway is actually a metaphor, so the loudspeaker lives next to either a sincere or a metaphorical freeway.The family is introduced in the second part. It is an all- young-bearing(prenominal) family, consisting of three generations grand capture, get, and daughter. Grandmother is a Queen, mother is Swift K shadow, undaunted Warrior, who wants to be a Princess ins tead. The speaker herself is conflicted by her role in the family. Because she cannot decide, she becomes a scribbler a translator, someone who does light soldiery work. These fairytale images contrast sagaciously with that of the freeway. They are a magic, mystic family that live next to a cold, plain freeway.In the third stanza the tense of the poem changes from aside tense to present tense. Nature resourcefulness is shown it tells close seagulls and birds. Nature is again a contrast to the freeway. The last two lines of this part grannie trusts only what she builds / with her own reach, can be read as a hint that the freeway, not organism built by oneself, is not to be trusted. This passage also contains accusations against men. The male mockingbirds are, in contrast to men, singing for their wives and They dont leave their families / borrachando. This is express by grandma and it is very likely that she is speaking out of her own experience. In the poem the cleaning lad y-family, left by their men, shows the difference between the rickety hu homosexual world and the thinkinglized idea of disposition the mockingbirds family-structure is still intact. Men are to be made responsible for the conclusion of the humankind family unit. This is made explicit in the next stanza.Grandmas preserve is described as a man who tried to slay her. Now if he indeed attempted to murder his married woman or if he tried to kill her physically, would not make too a veracious deal of a difference. It is shown that men are fantastic and the destroyers of the family. The tense is again past tense. The men of these women belong to the past they are history. Grandma became a strong and self-reliant woman after cosmos together with her husband. The family is shown as being happy by not having men, who could endanger their content lives.But the conformity of the female family is threatened. In the following stanza the speaker describes a man, entering the house dur ing night, violent, inebriate and spreading fear. It is not clear who he is probable the man of the mother, but it could also be the grandmothers husband. close to of this part is written in dialogic form, but it is uncertain who is speaking or who is addressed. It is also ambiguous what time this section refers to. past times tense is used, but conjunctive in the first line in the night I would hear it indicates that something similar happened (or happens?) more than once.The last section is finally true and presents a positive outlook, also concerning men. scripted in the present tense it tells about the present and the season is summer. It starts with a conversation between one of the women andher daughter. It is probable the mother talking to the speaker. She gives her pieces of advise, which are mainly warnings of men. She has had her experiences and does not have any illusions, but the daughter is more idealistic and trusts in a sort of natural law If you are good to them / they will be good to you back. And it seems as if the speaker got substantiate in her opinion, because she is sleeping with a lovely man / to the hymn of the mockingbirds. This final stanza then also tells about the future. The things the daughter plans to do refer back to the grandmother. The three generations are thus linked together in cyclic harmony.A relationship with man can be achieved, if independence is preserve and confidence is only placed in oneself. The bond of the family, the unity between mother and daughter will always be stronger than any relationship between man and women. The mockingbird, which lives the ideal of a natural family including the male, is by all odds a positive image and also a contrast to the freeway. The bird accompanies the grandmothers patchwork and the speakers sleeping with her gentle man. The freeway is mentioned again in the last stanza, but this time without any negative connotations. It is just said that it is across the street.This is just a neutral statement, the freeway does not cast any shadows anymore. The natural, the mockingbird, and the unnatural, the freeway, have come to scathe with each other. One could also urge that the mockingbird stands for the loving and caring female concept, involving instinct and nature, whereas the freeway expresses the male depression, being unnatural and without feeling and thinking, a guile worm. Just as nature and environment have to struggle with human progress, women have to struggle with men.A distribute in this poems stays ambiguous and vague. real often the voices of the three women are not to be identified their identities merge and this increases the notion of continuity and connection among three generations of women, in which men will always be outsiders, even if they are gentle.