In an interview , Marge Piercy answered the question as: Are you feminist? “Yes, I consider myself a feminist. I was involved in the second wave of feminism when it began, basically around 1996 & I remain politically active & involved.

1. THE WOMAN IN THE
ORDINARY
Marge Piercy

3. MARGE PIERCY

4. • An American poet, novelist & essayist
and social activist.
• Marge Piercy was born in Detroit,
Michigan ,on March 31,1936.
• In a working-class family that had been
hand-hit by the depression.
• She is also associated with an American
non-profit publishing organization.

5. She won a scholarship to the
University of Michigan & was the
first member of her family to
attend college. She earned a
master’s degree from Northwestern
University.
EDUCATION

6. • Arthur C.Clarke award for Science
Fiction in 1992
• Golden Rose Poetry Prize in 1990
• National Endowment for the Arts
Award in 1978.
• Honorary doctor of Humane
Letters Degree from the Hebrew
Union college in 2004.
HER ACHIEVEMENTS

7. Free Verse
Autobiographical Elements
Feminist Ideas
Civil Rights
Religious Heritage
Effective Relationships
STYLE OF WRITING AND THEMES

8. She has many influences that helped
guide her work to success:
• Her failed marriages.
• Her family religion.
So these are experiences that helped
shape and influence her poetry and
other writings.
INFLUENCES

9. In an interview , Marge Piercy answered the
question as:
Are you feminist?
“Yes, I consider myself a feminist. I was
involved in the second wave of feminism
when it began, basically around 1996 & I
remain politically active & involved”.
FEMINISTIC STANCE

10. Why I am a feminist? "I was born a
woman I can’t imagine identifying
strongly as a woman & not wanting
things to be better & safer & more fun
& less dangerous for myself & other
women”.

12. The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms that
trumpet.
TEXT OF THE POEM

13. The woman of the golden fleece
laughs uproariously from the belly
inside the girl who imitates
a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,
who fishes for herself in other's eyes,
who stoops and creeps to make herself
smaller.
In her bottled up is a woman peppery as
curry,
a yam of a woman of butter and brass,
compounded of acid and sweet like a
pineapple,
like a handgrenade set to explode,
like goldenrod ready to bloom.

14. In this poem, Marge Piercy establishes
a strong stance that
“An Ordinary Woman in anything but
Ordinary”
THEMATIC STATEMENT

15. ANALYSIS

16. • Comprised of four stanzas.
• Each stanza stands on its own
and is linked with the last
stanza too.
• Written in free verse.
PATTERN OF THE POEM

17. • In first three stanzas women’s
oppressed condition has been
defined with a subtle touch that
becomes vivid in the last stanza,
making the poem ironic for set
patriarchal standards.

18. “The Woman in The Ordinary”
Title is ironic in the same way as Piercy has
adopted to put her stance and by silent hidden
words ,she has played in full swing.
“To her Woman is Anything but
Ordinary even if she is an Ordinary
woman”.
SIGNIFICANCE OF TITLE

19. 1. Diction Analysis
2. Thematic Analysis
3. Symbolic Analysis
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

20. The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast
girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
1ST STANZA

21. There is an ordinary, chubby and
disgusted girl, within her lies the
woman who is bending downward in
horror and terror, keeping her eyes
closed and embracing herself tightly.
She whirls and hide herself smoothly,
to avoid any distraction.
LITERAL MEANING

22. The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast
girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
1ST STANZA

23. Starting with particularity:
The Woman
The Woman is symbolic to girl’s state of mind.
Use of adjectives and adverbs giving negative
connotations:
Ordinary pudgy downcast
Round and pebble smooth
Verbs are giving a sense of subordination or invisibility:
Crouch , Clench, Efface
DICTION ANALYSIS

24. • The stanza contained within it the
Feministic themes.
• The woman is symbolic to her state of
mind.
• Patriarchal society and Its Oppression.
• Women an Invisible Being.
• Submissiveness of Women.
• Concept of Beauty.
THEMATIC ANALYSIS

25. Crouching Effaces
SYMBOLIC LEVEL

26. • This discouragement has taught
her to fight for her rights.
• She is no more bending to
subjugate but standing not only
with courage and confidence but
also blooming with grace in every
field of life.
Women realization

27. • She is negating the discrimination by
involving herself in intellectual
conversation and debates where she
can put her own stance and show her
capacities and skills.

28. The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms
that
trumpet.
2ND STANZA

29. There is a woman in carved, in the
block of an ivory soap, who has
great breasts, massive thighs and big
huge arms, all this excessiveness is
causing too much disturbance and
discomfort.
LITERAL MEANING

30. The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms
that
trumpet.
2ND STANZA

31. Address to a Particular: The woman
Adjectives : ivory,
massive, great, strong.
Suffixes: Addition of s
Thighs, arms, breasts
Verb used :Blare, neigh, trumpet.
DICTION ANALYSIS

32. Piercy in this Stanza is presenting two
stances in juxtaposition.
Ivory is the word related to beauty,
delicateness and fragility. She presents
the notion of beauty that is altogether
opposed to the set standards of
Patriarchy.
THEMATIC ANALYSIS

33. The hugeness and plurality is adding
force and domination of the women
that are considered ugly. That forces of
Unity and oneness is destroying the
wrecked and biased frame of
Patriarchal society and this destruction
can be heard aloud

34. • Idea v/s Idea of Object
• There is no relationship of the Ideal Forms (idea)
with the objects, to whom they specify. Plato
SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS

35. ALL WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL BY
BIRTH

36. Violence and the Gendered Shaming of Female
Bodies and Women’s Sexuality: A Feminist
Literary Analysis of Selected Fiction by South
African Women Writers
Jessica Murray (7 January 2019):
“I seek to unpack how selected authors represent
the ways in which seemingly harmless
assumptions about women’s bodies and
sexualities form part of a much larger, insidious
and profoundly misogynist system of gendered
power inequalities.”
BODY SHAMING

37. Elliott, Benfield & Barlow (1995)
conducted a study on Overt Sexuality in
Advertising: A Discourse Analysis of Gender
Responses.
In this article, objectification of
women is one of the prime concerns
while talking about overt sexuality in
advertisement.
SEXUALITY AND
ADVERTISEMENT

39. LaTour & Henthorne (1994)
Ethical Judgments of Sexual Appeals in
Print Advertising. The article attempts
to examine the impact of potentially
controversial sexual appeals as ad
stimuli on consumers, their ethical
judgment, attitude towards ad,
attitude towards brand and purchase
intention are analyzed.
COMMODIFICATION OF WOMEN

40. The woman of the golden fleece
laughs uproariously from the belly
inside the girl who imitates
a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,
who fishes for herself in other's eyes,
who stoops and creeps to make herself smaller.
3RD STANZA

41. The woman in the golden sheep fur,
laughs helplessly by looking at a girl
who is trying to copy the timid and shy
posture of virgin , whose hands are
glued together, printed on Christmas
card. The girl tries too finds her in
others.
LITERAL MEANING

42. Address: The woman
Adjective: the golden fleece
Adverb: laughs uproariously
Verbs : low self esteem Fishes , imitates
Indefinite pronoun: other's eyes,
Adjectives: Stoops and creeps smaller
glued hands.
DICTION ANALYSIS

43. MEDEA THE GODDESS
Medea, in Greek mythology, an
enchantress who helped Jason,
leader of the Argonauts, to
obtain the Golden Fleece from
her father, King Aeëtes
of Colchis. She was of divine
descent and had the gift of
prophecy. She married Jason
and used her magic powers and
advice to help him.

44. 1. Shattering patriarchal stereotypical
gender roles.
laughs uproariously
2. Satire on psychologically satisfied
women.
3. Motivation for all women
4. Depiction of powerful lady.
THEMATIC ANALYSIS

45. George Bernard Shaw:
“There is only one true morality for every man;
but every man has not the same true morality”
SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS

46. MARX VIEW ON RELIGION

47. In her bottled up is a woman peppery as
curry,
a yam of a woman of butter and brass,
compounded of acid and sweet like a
pineapple,
like a handgrenade set to explode,
like goldenrod ready to bloom.
4TH STANZA

48. In a girl lies a woman who has all
competence and by her knowledge and
skills she is all ready to make something
new and surprisingly amazing or
destructive as well.
LITERAL MEANING

49. Shift in Address: a woman
Words: all flavors peppery as curry,
butter and brass,
acid and sweet like a pineapple,
Words : Revolutionary ideas a yam,
handgrenade ,goldenrod
Verbs: Sequence is important explode, bloom
WORD ANALYSIS

50. • Negation of Platonic views about woman
• Negation and destruction of all oppressed
patriarchal notions, standards
• Equality
• Economic freedom
• Individual freedom and persona
• All set to fight for her rights
THEMATIC ANALYSIS

51. SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS

52. Piercy’s wordily celebrated novel Women on the Edge of
Time is considered as Utopian Feminist Classic.
It can be analyzed from novel’s dialogue:
“Connie feels sick when she sees Barbarossa, a
strongly-built man, begins to breastfeed a crying
baby with the help of female hormones injected
into his system.”
UTOPIAN FEMINISM

53. The gist of the novel lies in these words:
“On the basis of their response to an unjust
and harshly stratified class-, race-, and
gender-ridden society, future dwellers
experience enormous personal freedom and
train one another in self-control and ways
of producing win-win results in all social
situations

54. A woman is:
• A complete human.
• Present in all roles.
• Linked to all relations.
• Emotionally and intellectually intelligent.
• Adaptable to change.
• Beautiful in all faces.
WOMAN PERSONA

55. Simile: a figure of speech involving the
comparison of one thing with another thing
of a different kind, used to make a
description more emphatic or vivid
• “like a pineapple,”
• “like a handgrenade”
• “like goldenrod”
FIGURES OF SPEECH

56. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which
a word or phrase is applied to an object
or action to which it is not literally
applicable
“The woman of golden fleece”
“Christmas card virgin”

57. Alliteration: The occurrence of the
same consonant sound at the beginning
of adjacent or closely connected words.
• “breasts blare”
• “Strong trumpet”

58. Irony: The expression of one's
meaning by using language that
normally signifies the opposite, typically
for humorous or emphatic effect.
• The woman of The Ordinary
• “like goldenrod ready to bloom.”

59. Symbolism: The use of symbols
to represent ideas or qualities.
“like a handgrenade set to
explode”.

60. Marge Piercy was involved with the
second wave of feminism, along
with that she was involved in several
social, political and civil parties that
were raising voices for the
depressed and marginalized ones.
.
CONCLUSION

61. The Woman in the Ordinary aims to
first present the traditional patriarchal
woman, who is oppressed or is satisfied
with this subjugation, and then comes
up with a strong and subtle shift of
tone and mood by the help of figurative
language that motivates women to think
and shatter the patriarchal chains by
feministic goldenrod.