William Carlos Williams - the Young Housewife

William Carlos Williams – The Young Housewife

William Carlos William's poem "The Young Housewife" published in 1916, during World War I, deals at first glance, as the title suggest, with the recollection of a young housewife by the first-person narrator. On closer examination, however, it is striking, that the poem is about the writing process of an image and therefore can be seen as ars poetica. The meta-linguistic character of the poem is underlined by the structure of the poem.

The short poem consists of three stanzas of four, five and three lines each and the four sentences, it is made of, are written in free verse. Its structure is defined by a three-part temporal framework, which follows a chronological order. Each stanza starts with a broad statement about the scenery, which becomes more specific throughout the course of the poem. Furthermore, the narrative character of the poem is underlined by the usage of the literary device of enjambment, which is present for the most part.

The setting of "The Young Housewife" is a domestic situation of a particular woman, involving an absent husband. In the first stanza the first-person narrator, who is most likely a young man, gives the reader a glimpse of the young housewife's life. The stanza begins with the exact time, ten A.M., and the fact that she is not fully dressed yet, which suggests that the woman is not rushed to dress herself because she has nothing to do but her daily routine. The narrator's description of the woman as she is "in négligé" (line 2) and standing "behind […] walls" (lines 2-3) is in a way seductive. This description of the woman emphasizes her beauty and naturalness and the fact that the unnamed individual portrays a desirable, erotic object to the narrator. Moreover, the "wooden walls of her husband's house" (line 3) represent the physical barriers, which separate the young woman from her ideas, dreams and desires and keep her controlled by her husband. She is trapped in the building and can only escape when she is doing her daily chores. The narrator creates the assumption that the house belongs to the woman's husband even though it is unknown who it belongs to. This image emphasizes the women's social positioning in the 19th century and implicates that there is a great distinction between men and women regarding their social status. The narrator describes himself in the first stanza as a "solitary" (line 4) observer, protected by the steel of his car. The car doesn't only provide him with an anonymous point of observation but also represents a status symbol, which stands out when compared with the housewife, who doesn't own anything, not even the house she is living in.

The second stanza starts with the description of the repeated appearance of the housewife. She "comes to the curb" (line 5),