Inhabiting and Transforming a Poem - Handout #3

1.Character
You're a girl
and you'd better not forget
that when you step over the threshold of your house
men will look askance at you.
When you keep on walking down the lane
men will follow you and whistle.
When you cross the lane and step onto the main road
men will revile you and call you a loose woman.

If you've got no character
you'll turn back,
and if not
you'll keep going
as you're going now.

2. Why are women faced in such a negative light by men? My first reaction was of a sort of anger. Women are absolutely not just for men or men's pleasure. However, once done with the poem, I had a positive attitute towards the narrator. The narrator realizes the negativity that some women face daily. The narrator is telling the woman to stay strong and ignore any insults or negativity. The narrator also says to keep going as you are right now, meaning that the woman she is speaking to IS strong and he acknowledges that.

3. As a woman, you have to realize that men will talk to you poorly and think of you in a negative light because many of them feel superior. However, you must ignore this and keep living your life the right way, because you are strong and you will get past the negativity.

4. The narrator is an older woman, maybe around 80 years old, who is full of wisdom. The narrator is speaking to a young girl, anywhere from 12 to 20 years old, who has just been given more freedom in her life. The speaker and the listener may not have an extremely close relationship, but the two respect each other. If they didn't respect each other, the narrator would not have been speaking in such gentle diction.

5. I feel that the theme of the poem is to live your life the way you feel is right and ignore the negativity, because you cannot please everybody. There will always be critics, and the best thing you can do is learn from the critics instead of being pushed down by them. I think that this is the theme because the narrator tells the girl to keep going, as she is going now. The narrator approves of how the girl lives her life now and encourages her to keep doing the same thing.