Modernism

Brandy Laurel Jeschonek New Forms and Lit. Bounds

Monday, September 27, 2004

Mina Loy and Feminism

In her poem, "Parturition" Mina Loy paints the picture of childbirth with an intellectual style uncommon I would imagine for this type of subject. Childbirth is not of the intellect. Rather, it is functional, simply physiological. I wonder if Mina Loy is trying to reshape the roles of women through the creation of a different view on the childbirth. To future play on this overdone metaphor, is she midwifing a new era of thought and action for women? I believe that she wishes this, but is not thrilled with the roles of women up to this point, nor does she believe women are fighting hard enough (Feminist Manifesto- "The Feminist movement is inadequate.")
So we as the readers are left with an image of a woman who is trying to bring about great change. Looking at her other poems, we see evidence of her outcry for equalities. For example, in her poem, "Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots" Loy seems to be making another proclamation against the traditional roles that women hold. In this poem, I examined the ideas of marriage. The poem is full of line breaks, pauses, and stanzas that seem to go everywhere. In this, I see a tone of sarcasm, perhaps even anger from Loy. I am wondering if this is not only a jab at woman subservience, but also a jab at women themselves, for allowing this to continue. The last lines lead me to believe this: "With the door locked agains virgins who might scratch.

1 Comments:

Blogger Kenneth Sherwood said...

I like your attention to and emphasis upon the energy of Loy's implicitly feminist project. Her's is not the more familiar supportive/sisterly mode that we might be familiar with. A critic (DuPlessis I think) observes that Loy envisioned change not just of social institutions, but transformation at the level of consciousness and seems often to urge this upon individual women themselves --most dramatically in Auto-facial Reconstruction.

I'm curious as you note Loy's effort to "reshape" roles of women whether you think childbirth (for instance) is necessarily function/physiological. Or did you mean to write that's how it's ususually seen? The point of my curiousity here would be in trying to discern whether Loy reimagines a possible or impossible future.

October 4, 2004 9:14 AM  

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