House of Changes

1. The speaker is defining her own body as a house full of different women representing different aspects of herself. Each woman personifies one of the different layers of herself and how she reacts to different situations. They display these differences through their character traits.

2.
A) Vulnerable is the first character described as living in the house. She is very protected with her leather clothing in order to keep her from harm and, being the door answerer, she is the first layer of the speaker that people meet. However, despite her leather exterior she is wounded easily by people trying to get into the house. She is a metaphor for the speaker’s outer crust that tries to protect the speaker from being hurt by others but can be penetrated easily and result in the speaker feeling emotions for other people.
B) Mindful is the second character introduced and is almost the super-ego character. She is orderly and businesslike without ever having any real emotional or personal attachment to her own experiences or accomplishments. She just runs the house and doesn’t bother to do anything more than keep everything in order. Mindful is a metaphor for the speaker’s more sensible, businesslike side and is what helps to keep the speaker organized.
C) In the fourth stanza the reader is introduced to Commendable. She is the woman ready to go out of her way to help others and to be well-liked. She is kind of fake and works hard to appear to always be in control. She wishes to appear to be dainty and lady-like but also hides and holds resentments towards others. She is a metaphor for the speaker’s outer layer, the side that she tends to show others in order to make friends and be well-liked.
D)The fifth stanza introduces the speaker’s favourite of her inner characters, Equivocal. Equivocal is a strange woman with a deceptive and often twisted nature. Nothing about her makes sense at a first glance and often her actions do not make sense. She is the thinker, the philosopher, and the recluse of the group. She thinks about the strange and does not ask for anything but, instead, spends her time arranging her symbols. Equivocal is a metaphor for the speaker’s weird side, the side that lies and hides herself away in order to think about strange and mysterious things instead of being “normal“ or easily understood.
E)In the basement of the speaker’s “house” lives Harmful. She is the speaker’s defense mechanism but she is generally hidden from view by the other women. However, when Harmful escapes she is ferocious and violent, aiming to cause harm to anyone who tries to intrude upon the house. Harmful is a metaphor for the speaker’s temper and shows how the speaker tries to keep her temper at bay but also shows the tidal wave of fury that is released when she loses control.
F) Lastly, the speaker views herself as one of the women but also, in a sense, an outsider to their world. Her character is named Imminent and she is a vagabond of sorts, having not yet become close enough to the other women for her to live with them. She is slowly but surely integrating herself into their circle and trying to like them enough for her to be able to move in. Imminent is the speaker’s metaphor for how she is trying to become in touch with herself and better understand the different feelings and emotions that dwell within her. Only once she has become friends with the different parts of herself can she truly move in and feel comfortable with herself.

3. The underlying theme of this poem is the speaker’s struggle with the different parts of herself and how they all interact to make her who she is.

The Wind of Our Enemy

1.
I. The wind is portrayed as negative and seen as a threat to the people, it foretells of hardships to come.
II. In this segment the wind is portrayed as beautiful when moving through the fields but the poet uses the line, “That was the last good year…” to foreshadow that more negative portrayal of the wind is coming.
III. This segment shows the farming families love of the land and the hopes that they held for their crops as well as telling of the failed crops due to the heat and lack of rain.
IV. The people start out hoping against hope for rain but after years of famine they lose hope and are left hungry, thirsty, poor, and despising the weather.
V. The family horse is described as once being strong and beautiful but now being sickly and mad, resulting in the loss of their horse and their means of ploughing what little crops they have left.
VI. The last stanza is about the relief that the people get, both physical relief such as food and clothes that come in a relief car but also the relief that they feel when they realize that even now, with so little to their names, they have it better than some of the people fighting in wars around the world.

2.
Metaphor:
-”metal hardness of the sky.”
-”sides groomed to copper burning the sun.”
Simile:
-”wheat in spring was like a giant’s bolt of silk”
-”sky like a new tin pan”
Metonymy:
-”Just empties goin’ back!” (referring to clouds)
-”white hoofs ” (referring to horses)
Personification:
-”snatching the sweaty cap”
-”wheat was embroidering”
- “sun’s touch be gentle”
- “softened only in mockery.”
Paradox
-”That never shattered, never blurred in foam. That was the last good year.”

Alliteration
-”So the soon sickly-familiar saying”
-”snatching the sweaty cap, shielding”

Parallelism
-”A man’s heart could love his land…… A woman’s eyes could kiss the soil”

3.
During parts I and II the poet focuses more on the description of the wind and the land. She describes the differences felt between the wind during the famine versus the wind a year before and, through this, shows how perspective can change something awful to something beautiful and vice versa. This contrasts with the style of the rest of the poem because through parts III to VI the poet is more focused on the effects of the wind and the famine on a certain farm family. Instead of looking at the wind as simply an entity the reader is shown it through the eyes of this family and the toll that the famine has taken upon them. It is almost as through the first two parts are a prologue to the story of this family, introducing the setting and the problem and then allowing the rest of the poem to tell the story.