Power Struggles in the "Young Housewife"

Who has the power?

The men in the poem seem to have the power. Barry Ahearn said "The poem focuses attention on various tangible barriers and containers, as if the poet were mulling over the structures that physically restrain the young housewife. The "wooden walls," for example, "of her husband's house" are the major physical barriers that hide her from the view of patrolling males, though it seems that this doctor's view has the advantage of x-ray vision, for he discerns her moving "in negligee" behind those walls. When she finally emerges, further physical limitations appear. The "curb" seems to be one barrier that marks the boundary between herself and delivery men. Another constraint is prominent by virtue of its absence: she is "uncorseted." Furthermore, the adjective beginning line 8, "stray," suggests her possible predilection for escaping orderly confines, whether in terms of hair arrangement or in terms of more serious transgressions. The poet, too, exists in a physical container--his car."

The wife lives in her "husband's house;" it is expressly stated that the house belongs to him and not her. The housewife is restrained by the "man made" things of the world in which she lives. The "curb," the "wooden walls," and the car in which the narrator drives by all separate him from her, and her from the world. The narrator speaks of her as a "fallen leaf" and then two lines later crushes leaves beneath his tires as he drives away, but he can only overcome her figuratively, as he does the leaf. Her husband can only restrain her physically, and she is pushing those boundaries by being "uncorseted." Even her hair seems to be fighting to be free of its restraints. When re-reading this it seems that she is spiritually free, that her body may conform to the restraints of the masculine influences and power in her world but spiritually she is free and beautiful.

The image of a fallen leaf does not have to be a sad image. The leaf is free of its protection, but it is also separated from the structures and confines of the tree. Natural imagery is often used in literature to describe the feminine presence as something unable to be tamed, something wild that cannot be put down by masculinity's dominance. John Milton sets up a direct correlation between the first woman, Eve, and the Garden of Eden from his introduction of her in his work Paradise Lost and though a famous example, it is certainly not the only one. I think that the image of the leaf used to represent the young housewife works in this way, as an image of freedom and an untamed and untamable nature.