Addiena Amru Rizky

Aura Rositafani

Offering A-A1

Basic Analysis of Poem (Men by Maya Angelou)

Living as a human, we will not regardless of man and woman that admires each other. Both of them have attractiveness of each in their creation. Sometimes, a man loves a woman because of her appearance; the beauty of her face or the shape of her body that is so ravishing. The goal of loving each other is actually to reach the happiness. One of the things that indicates the happiness is having an amenity of intercourse.

If we want to save the precious memories such as the story of love, we usually capture some pictures, record the videos, and sometimes write a novel. However, if we want to share about the privilegeof intercourse, it is not possible to make it clear and vulgar. So, poem is the best solution to capture those kind of precious moment in the beautiful words. What kind of naked story that the writer want to show in this poem and how the writer design the story with the beautiful imagery words will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

In general, the main idea of this poem is how the woman act to the man in the age of her puberty. It tells us about how her feeling, curiosity, and desire to the man. The writer used the narrative poem. It means that stanza by stanza told the event orderly. According to our opinion, the writer wanted to show how the woman finally having an intercourse with the man. It starts with the feeling of love, The woman love the shape of the men that is so entice as in the words “Their shoulders high like the breasts of a young girl”. It indicates that the woman praise the men. The woman constantly gazed in the back of the curtains that made the feeling of love was on fire. The most interesting thing is when those kind of feeling happen. It happened in her puberty. So, it is not just about admire someone and stuck. The feeling of starving means that the woman want something more than just happy in seeing. The woman really want to have an intercourse with the man. Why I said “really”? It is because the word starving means someone want something very much. The writer prefer to use starving rather than want or need. In short, in the first paragraph, the writer told us how the woman start the love by praising his look, seeing continuously, and finally the feeling was increased to want something more than that. Also, we discussed about the reason of the writer using the word “Men” rather than “Man” and “Women” rather than “Woman”. We think that the writer wanted to generalize the issue. It is probably someone’s experience but the writer thinks that those kind of thing will also happen to the others young girl. It is created in the prespective of the woman. So, we think that according to one experience, the writer conclude that in general the woman and the men will act like that.

In this poem, we can look how the writer describes the characteristic of each woman and men. First, the write describes that woman is so easy to be seduced. By looking the evidence that only by gazing men’s appearance, it makes the woman was starving. In the following stanza, we assume that the woman actually disappointed. Although in the first the woman want to have his body, she felt that it was hurting and irritating by having an intercourse and looking how the men treat the women. However, we change our mind. We think that the woman was so obstinate. After she did this with the men and felt hurt, but she want it again because she know that it is also so deeply enjoyable. Besides, we also can make an assumption about the men’s characters. They were so full of strongly desire and natural appetite. We can look by the way the men treated the woman; “they tighten up”,”a quick hug”, “the hurts begin”, and so on. Also, the men is always expert in persuasion. They can indulge the woman so that the woman feel enjoy and want it again although it also hurt. The way the men touched the woman and saw them is really good. For instance, when the men hug, hold, and kiss the woman was described that the woman was stratified because of that. Because the woman is really dominant in using their feeling, so we felt that it is really appropriate with their characters in this poem, easy to be seduced. Also, because the men is really dominant in using their logic, so we felt that it is really appropriate with their characters that sketched in this poem, easy to attract woman and did not think too much about his own feeling.

Starting from the 2nd stanza, the poem’s main focus is the accident of a rape of the young girl. The first three lines, “One day they hold you in the Palms of their hands, gentle, as if youWere the last raw egg in the world.” is the starting point of the rape itself. The rape is done by the men she has been observed all along. The girl feels it as if she is special; we can tell by the words “hold”, “gentle”, “the last raw egg” that indicate the exclusiveness feeling of that girl, while she is being raped in reality. The next stanza begins the explanation of the penetration process. The “They tighten up. Just a little. TheFirst squeeze is nice. A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness.”lines clearly show what “it” feels like for the young girl—a first-timer. The men overpowered her and she is totally okay with it. We can tell by the usage of the words “squeeze”, “nice”, “hug”, and “soft”. In other words, she was in a situation where she couldn’t do anything to defense herself from the man’s power, yet she enjoyed it. Elaborating the previous lines, the “A littleMore. The hurt begins. Wrench out aSmile that slides around the fear. When theAir disappears,Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly,Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered.” lines are about the climax of the intercourse. The writer compares the experience to “the head of a kitchen match” because it has similar sense and feeling. When you lit up the head of a kitchen match, it would pop and exploding fire fiercely. She felt overwhelmed by that whole new experience. After that, the “It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes.” lines show the physical evidence of the intercourse activity. The next lines, “When the earth rights itself again,And taste tries to return to the tongue,Your body has slammed shut. Forever.No keys exist,” wrap up the aftermath of the intercourse activity. The moment after the man has done it, her mind gradually comes back into the reality. She realized that the man has just raped her.

Furthermore, it is clear that the language style used in the poem is from the point of view of a female. We can tell right away from some of the choice of words, phrases, and similes that the writer is a woman. Some words give references of kitchen. Phrases like “the last raw egg” and “the head of a kitchen match” are the examples. Women are generalized to be the ones that are responsible for kitchen-related stuff. Thus, we can infer that these words can only be used by women—the ones who are familiar with those stuff.

In addition, the powerlessness of women (portrayed as a young girl) can be sensed throughout the whole poem. There are many symbolism used to visualize it all. Curtains, for example, do not merely mean as the “real” curtain. It could symbolize various things such as virginity, innocence, and distance. The girl in the poem is described as someone who always hides behind curtains. We can also infer from her behavior that the girl is actually making distance or drawing a line from the men behind her innocence and virginity. The need of men in her life is undoubtedly obvious, but the lack of knowledge about men and their nature hesitates her. The “curtains” are what keep her, an innocent and virgin fifteen-year-old girl who silently seeks for “pleasure” deep down inside her heart, in her safe zone.

conclusion