Woman Work by Maya Angelou

Woman Work 

By Maya Angelou

• Critical analysis of the poem
• Why does working woman make a passionate appeal to the nature and natural phenomena?
• Woman work deals with the Boredom felt in daily life and especially of Women.discuss.
• Main idea of the poem.

Maya Angelou is a renowned American writer. In this poem, she has depicted the miserable plight of a black skinned woman who, right from morning to evening, remains burdened with heavy domestic chores. She is expected to slaughter her dreams and self respect. She is considered a donkey who is to carry the burden and has no spare time to relax. The most remarkable aspect of the poem is that the negress, presented in it, has close resemblance and affinity with a mediocre Pakistani woman. She wastes away all her physical and mental energies in plying domestic chores. She rears children without ever having moments of genuine bliss and relaxation all her life.

As we have hinted at earlier, this poem pertains to the myriad tasks that a woman has to accomplish all her life unceasingly. In this behalf, we can refer to the domestic tasks -which range from pressing clothes to rearing children - which confront her every morning and which she has to do throughout the day. By referring to the multiple tasks assigned to a woman, the poetess desires to stress that a woman in a poor or average family faces the most dismal situation in her life. Although different religions and codes of ethics give an exaggeratedly elevated view of woman, the actual fact is that she is just like a beast of burden. She goes on plying the odyssey of her life under the massive load of unending duties and assignments.

As a woman is a creature, gifted with mind and soul, she does long for relief from heavy household duties for the fulfilment of her mental and spiritual requirements. As she cannot get rid of the heavy chain of domestic duties, she usually has an imaginative experience of joy by identifying herself with various phenomena of Nature which are free from the shackles of duties. These natural phenomena has great fascination for her. In a way she does succeed in having moments of bliss and recreation, though imaginatively.