Lorna Dee Cervantes: Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway Essay

The form of the verse is non easy to determine. It consists of six stanzas of un in time length, which be, except for the first and fifth, again divide into sub-stanzas. The meter is irregular as well as the length of the verses and at that place is also no rhyme scheme. Cervantes plays very freely with the structure of poetrys. She does non use an established type of poem and ignores rhyme and meter, but she presents her lyric poem graphically in the form of stanzas, in separate but cogitate contributions. The six main fibres be numbered. It can be presume that the arrangement of the verses was done consciously and that it aims at a certain reception on the side of the postulateer.Each time a stanza or sub-stanza starts, a kind of pause emerges. This also allows the poem to have spatial and profane leaps without transitions, but it also increases the difficulties concerning the understanding of the text. In addition to that, universey things are only vaguely hinted or ambiguously presented. The inherent continuity of the poem is achieved by its themes and by its interpretry.The first section deals with the shadow of the information superhighway, the image that is also in the title of the poem. It becomes obvious that the vocalizer system lives next to a freeway she can watch it right across the street from her porch. every day she nonices that the shadow of the freeway lengthens. This is interesting, because freeways usually do not eruct shadows, they are flat. This seems to suggest that the freeway is actually a metaphor, so the speaker lives next to either a real or a nonliteral freeway.The family is introduced in the second part. It is an all-female family, consisting of three generations grand receive, mother, and daughter. Grandmother is a Queen, mother is Swift Knight, Fearless Warrior, who wants to be a Princess instead. The speaker herself is conflicted by her power in the family. Because she cannot decide, she becomes a Scrib e a translator, someone who does light man work. These fairytale images phone line sharply with that of the freeway. They are a magic, cryptic family that live next to a cold, plain freeway.In the third stanza the tighten of the poem changes from past tense to present tense. Nature imagery is shown it tells intimately seagulls and birds. Nature is again a contrast to the freeway. The last two lines of this part Grandma trusts only what she builds / with her own hands, can be read as a hint that the freeway, not macrocosm built by oneself, is not to be trusted. This passage also contains accusations against men. The male mockingbirds are, in contrast to men, singing for their wives and They dont leave their families / borrachando. This is said by granny and it is very likely that she is speaking out of her own experience. In the poem the woman-family, left by their men, shows the difference in the midst of the imperfect human human beings and the idealized idea of nature the mockingbirds family-structure is still intact. Men are to be made responsible for the destruction of the human family unit. This is made explicit in the next stanza.Grandmas husband is described as a man who tried to kill her. Now if he indeed assay to murder his wife or if he tried to kill her physically, would not make too much of a difference. It is shown that men are cherry and the destroyers of the family. The tense is again past tense. The men of these women belong to the past they are history. Grandma became a strong and self-reliant woman after being together with her husband. The family is shown as being happy by not having men, who could bushwhack their content lives.But the harmony of the female family is threatened. In the following stanza the speaker describes a man, entering the house during night, violent, drunk and spreading fear. It is not substantiate who he is probable the man of the mother, but it could also be the grannys husband. Most of this part is writt en in dialogic form, but it is iridescent who is speaking or who is addressed. It is also ambiguous what time this section refers to. recent tense is used, but conjunctive in the first line in the night I would hear it indicates that something similar happened (or happens?) more than once.The last section is nettly harmonious and presents a positive outlook, also concerning men. Written in the present tense it tells about the present and the season is summer. It starts with a dialogue between one of the women andher daughter. It is probable the mother talking to the speaker. She gives her pieces of advise, which are primarily warnings of men. She has had her experiences and does not have any illusions, but the daughter is more soaring and trusts in a sort of natural law If you are intelligent to them / they will be good to you top. And it seems as if the speaker got sustain in her opinion, because she is sleeping with a gentle man / to the hymn of the mockingbirds. This fina l stanza then also tells about the future. The things the daughter plans to do refer back to the grannie. The three generations are thus linked together in cyclical harmony.A affinity with man can be achieved, if independence is preserve and confidence is only placed in oneself. The bond of the family, the unity between mother and daughter will always be stronger than any relationship between man and women. The mockingbird, which lives the ideal of a natural family including the male, is definitely a positive image and also a contrast to the freeway. The bird accompanies the grandmothers patchwork and the speakers sleeping with her gentle man. The freeway is mentioned again in the last stanza, but this time without any negative connotations. It is just said that it is across the street.This is just a torpid statement, the freeway does not cast any shadows anymore. The natural, the mockingbird, and the unnatural, the freeway, have come to damage with each other. One could also ar gue that the mockingbird stands for the loving and warmth female concept, involving instinct and nature, whereas the freeway expresses the male notion, being unnatural and without popular opinion and thinking, a blind worm. Just as nature and surroundings have to struggle with human progress, women have to struggle with men.A component in this poems stays ambiguous and vague. Very often the voices of the three women are not to be identified their identities merge and this increases the notion of continuity and connecter among three generations of women, in which men will always be outsiders, even if they are gentle.