Literary Analysis Essay on Homage to My Hips

Introduction

Every poem has a speaker or persona who is the voice behind the section. The writer's voice expresses his or her feelings and situations in the poem. However the poem can have other speakers despite the poet of the poetry, the writers can write from a different standpoint, or the writer can speak in the voice of gender, race materials or any other object. The sounds represented by the poet is called a persona. The speaker of the poem Homage to my Hips is the poet, Lucille Clifton and she refers to women resilience against oppression in America and African

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Lucille Clifton in her poem speaks symbolically using the word hips in the poem. She is the kind of speaker who proud of herself, assertive and honest to herself she knows she has big hips as she calls them and appreciates her body and accepts it .she is aware that the community is judgmental and some words like big cannot be used by the society kindly when it comes to her description by the people. The poet, however, learns to be happy about herself because of the social perspective on her.

The speaker in the poem has two things in her mind that she wishes to address in verse. Initially, she is aware of society's matter on images of female bodies. Secondly, the speaker does not give a dump to the problems of the community is concerned only about herself. She is confident with her body image, and that's why she clearly says in her poem that, her hips are big hips indeed. Lucille talks of how free her hips are, how they need a lot of space but not the minor area because they are big, the way they have the freedom not held back by anybody.

All the description of the speaker on her hips symbolise how much she refers to both the America and African women resilience of harassment both in terms of politics and social life. The hips in the poem express the strength that women own, and they can use to influence the world more. Clifton, however, speaks on behalf of fellow women and in so doing she is a fighter of women freedom. She uses her body to emphasise on her points about her stand on women.

Our speaker does not vividly describe for us the hips she only says they are big. The picture of the big hips is not drawn in the mind of the reader. Clifton, however, describes the free movements of the hips across the world, how powerful and magic they are seductive to the extent that they can put magic to a man and swirl him around. The speaker does not dwell so much on the size, but how they move and this clearly shows the action of women.

Conclusion

To sum up the speaker in poems is very important because she or he takes the part of a mouthpiece in conveying the writer's idea and opinions to the audience. A speaker narrates and acts directly on something that exists or occurs. The speaker of our poem, Clifton, however actively speaks of her ideas and opinion on women while using a symbol which is her hips. She is good at the illusionist of women related problems in society.

References

Baym, N., & Levine, R. S. (Eds.). (2011). The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Eighth International Student Edition. WW Norton & Company. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dUjeCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=%22homage+to+my+hips&ots=vJ6EqWUz8F&sig=tUbZC7_ALLhBuSYzwxU-KdPM7Ic