Motherhood in the American Woman Poet’s Perspective: A Short Glance at Allen’s Rock Me to Sleep

Authors

  • Nandy Intan Kurnia Yogyakarta State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v9i2.829

Keywords:

motherhood, women poet, feminism

Abstract

Article scrutinized one of the works of an American woman poet named Elizabeth Akers Allen. The poem under study entitled “Rock Me to Sleep”. It was a portrayal of motherhood. The speaker of this poem is a woman who is longing for the love of her mother. She is seeking for a way to ease her pain since she feels that she has lost her own battle of womanhood. Although the mother remains absent, the readers of the poem can sense the powerful love of the speaker of the poem toward her mother. Method of this study was library research that carried out by applying descriptive analytical methods. Data were collected from the primary and secondary sources. Results of this paper are the writer of poetry wants to warn people that womanhood in the patriarchal society can create many problems, and the only remedy for those problems is motherhood. Article also proves that a writer does not have to be a feminist to produce a literary text which discusses the issue of women, which has became the focus of feminism.

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

Author Biography

Nandy Intan Kurnia, Yogyakarta State University

English Language and Literature Study Program, English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts

References

Andersen, M. L. (1997). Thinking about Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender. 4th Edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Appletons Encyclopedia. (2001). Elizabeth Akers Allen.

Retrieved on August 27th 2014 from http://famousamericans.net/elizabethakersallen/

Banks, C. (2010). “Dear Mother England”: Motherhood

Jurnal LINGUA CULTURA Vol.9 No.2 November 2015

and Nineteenth-Century Criticism of Shakespeare”. Women’s Writing.

Bomarito, J., & Jeffrey W. H. (2005). Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. Volume 2: 19th Century, Topics & Authors (A-B). Farmington Hills: Thompson Gale.

Boyd, C. J. (1989). Mothers and Daughters: A Discussion

of Theory and Research. Journal of Marriage and the Family.

Chodorow, N. J. (1991). Feminism and Psychoanalytic

Theory. Yale University Press.

Dally, A. (1983). Inventing Motherhood: The Consequences of an Ideal. New York: Schocken.

Flax, J. (1978). “The Conflict between Nurturance and

Autonomy in Mother- Daughter Relationship and Within Feminism.” Feminist Studies 4

Freedman, E. B. (2003). No Turning Back: The History

of Feminism and the Future of Women. New York:

Ballantine Books.

Friedan, B. (1997). The Feminine Mystique. New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Gevirtz, K. (2012). “Marilyn Francus, Monstrous Motherhood: 18th Century and the Ideology of Domesticity.” A Review. Seton Hall University.

Gray, J. (ed). (1997). She Wields a Pen: American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Iowa City:

University of Iowa Press.

James, E., Janet Wilson James, & Paul S. Boyer. (1971).

Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. Belknap.

Longman. (2001). Longman dictionary of contemporary

English 3rd edition. Harlow: Longman

Montefiore, J. (1994). Feminism and Poetry: Language,

Experience, Identity in Women’s Writing. London: HarperCollins Publisher.

Natov, R. (1990). Mothers and Daughters: Jamaica Kincaid’s Pre-Oedipal Narrative. Children’s Literature: An International Journal 18.

Neyer, G., & Laura Bernardi. (2011). Motherhood and

Reproduction. Stockholm: Stockholm University. Retrieved August 28th, 2014 from http://www.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.18714.1320939635!/

WP_2011_4.pdf

Rye, G. (2006). Maternal Genealogies: the figure of the

Mother in/and Literature. Journal of Romance Studies. Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies.

Sailus, C. (2003). Feminism in the 19th Century: Women’s Rights, Roles, and Limits. Retrieved August 27th, 2014 from University of New England. Elizabeth Akers Allen

Collection, 1866 – 1911. (2014). Retrieved on August 27th, 2014 from http://www.une.edu/mwwc/research/featured-writers/elizabeth-akersallen-collection-1866-1911.

Waterboro Public Library. (2007). “Elizabeth Akers Allen

(1832 – 1911)”. Retrieved on August 27th, 2014 from MWI_detail.php?authID=6

Downloads

Published

2015-11-30
Abstract 769  .
PDF downloaded 471  .