A Woman in Front of a Bank

Reading of the Poem

Thesis  Williams creates a contrast between the false trust of support found in banks with the strength of a woman

Sense pt. 1  Archetype (universally understood symbol) Columns  Strong foundation  Holds important buildings up  Multiple allusions- Both to very influential men  Lenin- communist revolutionary and political figure in the USSR  Darwin- English naturalist, evolution

Sense pt. 2  Mood (feeling) Tough; rugged; strong  Women holding up the family  Columns holding up a bank  Motif (re-acurring structure/contrast) Structure  Mid sentence breaks Contrast  Solid, rock vs. pink, baby carriage  Hard words vs. softer words

Sense pt. 3  POW (Point of View) 3 rd Person  “Her”, “the woman”, “the bank”  Speaker (Narrator) Observer  Watching the two stand next to each other and comparing them  Theme (Main Idea) Women (the household) and Columns (the business world)  Tone (speaker’s attitude) Very opinionated  Of what women’s roles are Maybe sexist  Which sex had which roles in life

Senses  Columns x2 (if you count “pediments”, then 3)  Imagery- Uses references to very solid objects while describing the bank but uses softer language while describing the woman “The bank is a matter of columns” “her loosely arranged hair” “a pink cotton dress, bare legged”

Mid - Way Activity  In pairs or groups: Draw what is described to you in “A Woman in Front of a Bank”  Try to use exact lines / stanzas from the poem for your drawing  Be prepared to explain your art work! We will then discuss the similarities and differences between the drawings afterward

Style  Personification “but the pediments sit there in the sun to convince the doubting of investments”  Metaphor/Hyperbole “upon the world stands, the world of finance, the only world”  Simile “’solid as rock’” “whose legs are two columns to hold up her face, like Lenin’s”  Irony/Cliché “’solid as rock’”  Personification The World of Finance  They say it stands or falls Columns  Holding up a bank / the financial world

Structure pt. 1  End-Stopped (Line ended with a., - ;) Lines 1, 2, 9, and 18 Period in the middle of a sentence (line 2)  Challenging convention of structure  Incremental Repetition (line repeated with some differences) “upon which the world stands” “the world of finance” “the only world”  Enjambment occurs between each stanza, creates 5 stanzas each 4 lines long  “like. convention, unlike invention”  Repetition  Columns is repeated twice; pediments is also stated, which is similar to the word columns  Alliteration  “like Lenin's (her loosely arranged hair...)”

Structure pt. 2  Stanza #1 4 lines (7, 2, 5, 5 – syllables)  Stanza #2 4 lines (5, 3, 6, 5 – syllables)  Stanza #3 4 lines (5, 5, 4, 7 – syllables)  Stanza #4 3 lines ( 6, 10, 6 – syllables)  Stanza #5 4 lines (5, 4, 3, 7 – syllables)

Sound  “Convention”, “Columns”  “like Lenin’s (her loosely)...”  “Convention” and “Invention” Rhyme Emphasis  Weakness of bank

Bank vs. Women  Strong View Columns hold up infrastructure Legs hold up woman which hold up the family  Weak View Banks = weak (“solid as rock”) Women = weak “sex symbol (“bare legged”) “profusely blonde”  “dumb blonde”

End Activity  Discuss, in your group, how the roles of women have changed from W.C.W.’s lifetime (1883 – 1963) to now.  Flapper 1920s - Today