{"id":2417,"date":"2021-12-13T09:03:41","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T14:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=2417"},"modified":"2022-01-08T15:52:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T20:52:29","slug":"simplified-version-of-a-womans-life-her-self-1975","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/leo\/simplified-version-of-a-womans-life-her-self-1975\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSimplified Version of a Woman\u2019s Life.\u201d Her-self, 1975."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

A poem, \u201cSimplified Version of a Woman’s Life,\u201d by Claudia Morrow, published in the May 1975 issue of Her-self<\/em>. The poem details how a woman’s evolving relationship with a benzodiazepine, Valium, affects her autonomy.<\/p><\/div>\n

Published in the initial issue of the fourth volume of Her-Self<\/em>, the poem \u201cSimplified Version of a Woman\u2019s Life\u201d by Claudia Morrow tells a story of a young girl transformed into an object to be married with the help of Valium. In the first stanza, the narrator reminisces about the freedom of childhood through vibrant imagery, \u201clook[ing] for movement \/ in mosaics \/ of leaves\u201d and \u201cwatch[ing] the leaves \/ of Tullys\u2019 fruit trees \/ sift the glow \/ of the red, summer sun\u201d (Morrow 18). Through her awareness and observations of the world, the narrator is free. Transitioning into the second stanza, the narrator matures into adulthood and the world becomes harsher: her father says he \u201cwouldn\u2019t have married a smart-ass woman,\u201d implying that the narrator needs to outgrow her freedom and become suitable for marriage while \u201cthe earth cool[s], [and] close[s] its lactic pores\u201d (18). The misogynistic portrayal of the narrator as a commodity to be married renders the narrator a \u201ccow woman,\u201d and her body a dowry (18). Through an extended bovine metaphor, the narrator is \u201cfattened on boiled hay\u201d and forced to \u201csuckle a myth \/ of dried bones \/ and Valium\u201d (18). In other words, she is prepared for marriage, and is unable to observe the world, or maintain agency within her circumstances, as a result of having been sedated. The final stanza begins with the lines, \u201cWomen\u2019s winter isn\u2019t over. We\u2019re still locked \/ in iron-rib stanchions\u201d referencing both the shackles of prescription tranquilizers and the greater oppression of women (18). The poem ends on a powerful message of hope, as the narrator gradually comes out of her docile state, \u201cremember[ing] how to move,\u201d \u201cstretching atrophied muscles,\u201d and \u201cmend[ing] spiritual tendons\u201d (18). In this final stanza, the narrator rediscovers her will to fight the oppression that was prescribed, both by her doctor and patriarchal society. Ultimately, she avoids the more dire fate of Anne Sexton\u2019s narrator in \u201cThe Addict\u201d \u2013 perhaps, in part, thanks to the personal narratives, poetry, visual imagery, and relevant research that warned against tranquilizer abuse in second-wave feminist publications.<\/p>\n

Work Cited:<\/p>\n

Morrow, Claudia. “Simplified Version of a Woman’s Life.” Her-self<\/em>, vol. 4, no. 1, May 1975, p. 18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/community.28038351.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in the initial issue of the fourth volume of Her-Self, the poem \u201cSimplified Version of a Woman\u2019s Life\u201d by Claudia Morrow tells a story of a young girl transformed into an object to be married with the help of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2652,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2652"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3176,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417\/revisions\/3176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}