The poem ‘Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead’ by Wanda Coleman is aggressive and addresses different societies by insulting ‘wanda’. Reading this poem for the first time, there were some silent giggles and comments made in the class room because of the almost childish tone of the speaker, but reflecting back on our thoughts concerning this poem, I realized that it is almost a call for help from someone that is in desperation. Through the use of diction, speaker/audience and structure, the poem conveys this image of someone that is desperate.
The speaker and the audience are the most important part of the story told because they’re one and the same. Wanda is speaking to this side of herself, hating this part of her that destroys her from the inside out. Certain sentences like ‘wanda what is it like to be black’ seem to be a memory that the speaker has; something that she has been asked before. Whenever these sentences come up which sound like they’re spoken by another person, it sounds like this person is someone that the speaker cares about deeply enough to allow them to hurt her. Only someone close to her could make her that vulnerable to these hurtful words. At other times in the poem, especially when the sentence ‘wanda why are you so angry’ comes up, the speaker is asking herself the question because she despises this part to her personality. She blames her problems on her anger by continuously coming back to this idea of questioning as to why she has anger issues. The last sentence ‘why ain’t you dead’ is the moment where the speaker gives up on the self-doubt and gives up on herself at the same time.
The diction reveals the different words wanda is associated with. She is accused of being poor, being fat, being angry, having big feet, being black, being crazy and too serious. These images are created through the use of condescending comments the speaker makes, such as ‘you’re joking. Girl, you crazy’ and ‘wanda. That’s a whore’s name’. The constant repetition of the name ‘wanda’ shows that all these words are in the speaker’s mind, like a voice in her head reminding her of all the bad aspects of her life.
The structure points out certain aspects of the poem that define the meaning of it. First of all there is almost no punctuation present, which hint to the fact that the poem could be characterized as a stream of thoughts. There is no capitalization of the name ‘wanda’ and even after a full-stop, no words are capitalized which outlines the meaningless aspect to everything she writes and thinks. Finally there are some words such as ‘what makes you so angry’ that emphasize on the importance of the question. One word ‘ALWAYS’ is completely capitalized which immediately stands out because nothing else is and it portrays the desperation of the speaker.
This poem is a classical situation of low self-esteem and personal struggle.
Clarity: I know what you are going to cover in your intro, although it is a bit vague: that Wanda is desperate, and how you know this (by structure, diction, speaker). The only thing I wonder is that by introducing how others reacted to the poem at first, it gives a bit of an informal feel to it… The structure is clearly broken into the separate ideas, however it is a bit sudden: try connecting the ideas in your pargraphs to get some nice fluency and transitions. Also, I think a concluding sentence where you connect it back to your thesis (desperation) will make things more understandable and linked together.
ReplyDeleteFor your body paragraphs, I find that the paragraph considering diction is a bit weak. I have some problems understanding what you mean: when you talk about the words representing who she is, I feel like this refers to the speaker paragraph. And so I think diction is a bit to vague for what you are trying to say. You talk more specifically with the dialect of the poem (“girl, you crazy”… it’s more of the way it is said- no respect) and the repetition. I think you should narrow this down, so you can put more analysis in. Right now you cover too much for a short 500 word commentary. Focus on one so you can fully explore the effect of the literary element. Throughout your commentary, you give examples from the poem to support your ideas, however I would like to see a little more analysis from the examples you provide. Currently, you have mostly just listed some examples- but use those examples to further your analysis. You do it sometimes, but in others it is just a quote that is lying there.
Overall, a good start! Just clarify the ideas so they are all linked together and it connects, and make sure you stick to a few topics and analyze them in depth.