‘Breaking Out’ By Marge Piercy: Poem Summary &

Analysis

Breaking Out: About the poem

Breaking Out by Marge Piercy is a modern poem of inspiration and of
rebellious spirit. The American poet, novelist and social activist Marge
Piercy has been known for her feminist writings. The poem, first published in
the Harbor Review in 1984, is a specimen of the tone and themes of her poetry.
And I have heard people hailing this poem as one of their all time favourites.
The poem ‘Breaking Out’ is an autobiographical picture of the sufferings,
feelings and rebellion of an adolescent girl in a ‘depressed’ family in the mid-
twentieth century America. The poet narrates how she grew up, ill-treated by
her parents, from childhood to adolescence. She felt bad for herself and even for
her mother as women had to do utterly useless things at home and had no
freedom. She dreamed of coming out of her sufferings when she grew. And one
day she broke the stick after a beating and felt “there were things that I should
learn to break”.
So, the title of the poem is not only about breaking a stick, but the greater
implication in it for breaking those outdated things that kept the society lagging.
It is indicative of the poet’s breaking out from the stereotypes that her mother
could not.
The first person narrative is fairly easy and simple in terms of the language
used, except a couple of places where the speaker uses rather metaphoric
expressions. There is no definite rhyme scheme in the poem. Stanzas of four
and three lines alternate, with a variation at the last two stanzas.

Breaking Out: Stanza wise explanation

My first political act? I am seeing
two doors that usually stood open,
leaning together like gossips, making
a closet of their corner.
The poem starts rather abruptly with a question that apparently aims to talk
about the first political act in the girl’s life. But here, ‘political’ is in the sense
that it was all about a protest, a revolt against something unjust. It is only at the
penultimate stanza of the poem that we come to know exactly what it was that
the poet marks as a ‘political act’. Actually, it was the act of breaking a stick
which her parents used to beat her.

After that motivated deed the poet can see the two different ways of life (two
doors) nearing each other. The ‘two doors‘ are the metaphors for the two
separate ways of life for her: one is to stick to the established norms of the
society, to bear with the humiliation and the captivity; another is to break away
from the stereotypes, to upset the status quo, to demand the freedom to do what
she likes.
These two ways were so far separate and distant from each other. But now, that
the girl has gained courage, she is heading towards the route of liberation from
that of the struggle and humiliation. The poet has created a visual image to
represent this, where ‘two doors’ are leaning together, as if they are whispering
in each other’s ears and ‘making a closet of their corner’.
A mangle stood there, for ironing
what i never thought needed it:
sheets, towels, my father’s underwear;
In the second stanza of ‘Breaking Out’ the girl starts narrating her story so far.
There was a mangle, a large machine for ironing damp clothes using heated
rollers. It was used for ironing stuffs like sheets, towels and her father’s
underwear. Clearly, those were not the ideal things that needed to be ironed, and
that is what she felt and expressed too. Understandably, that was a part of the
humiliation she received as a girl-child in the family.

an upright vacuum with its stuffed

sausage bag that deflated with a gusty
sigh as if weary of housework as I,
who swore i would never dust or sweep
A vacuum cleaner was standing there vertically with its filter bag full of dust
and looking like a sausage. When the filter bag was deflated, it let out loud
sound (a gusty sigh). She draws a comparison here by saying that it looked
similarly tired of household chores like the girl herself. She was rebellious and
swore not to clean or sweep when she grew up. It’s the hope of breaking out of
the suppressed way of life.

There is a personification of the vacuum cleaner as it lets out the sigh and
becomes weary of working. And, the ‘sausage bag’ is an example of metaphor.
There’s a simile too in ‘weary of housework as I’.
after i left home, who hated
to see my mother removing daily
the sludge the air lay down like a snail’s track
Air deposited the sludge from the nearby factories and painted “a snail’s track”
on the floor. After the girl left for school, her mother used to remove that dirt.
But she hated to see her do that same job daily. There is a simile in ‘like a
snail’s track’.
so that when in school i read of Sisyphus
and his rock, it was her I
thought of, housewife scrubbing
on raw knees as the factory rained ash.
In school, the girl read the story of Sisyphus, who in Greek mythology got the
punishment of rolling a boulder uphill. Every time he rolled it up only to see it
roll back down again.

When she read the story, she found a similarity between Sisyphus and her
mother. She continued to scrub the floor ‘on raw knees’ (kneeling down) and
the factories continued to ‘rain’ (deposit) ash and make it dusty again. She was
as submissive as Sisyphus, without any sign of improvement.

Nasty stork king of the hobnobbing

doors was a wooden yardstick dusty
with chalk marks from hem’s rise and fall.
These lines here are highly metaphoric. There was a yardstick with chalk marks
on it due to measuring the hem of clothes. But the poet has compared it to a
‘nasty stork’ that ruled over (king) the ‘hobnobbing doors’, the doors stated in
the very first stanza. The stick monitored any movement from the rules set by
the speaker’s parents.

To make it easy, whenever she tried to break away from her submission, she got
punished with that stick, as the poet makes it clear in the next stanza. The chalk
marks are also suggestive of the lines that she should not cross.

When I had been judged truly wicked

that stick was the tool of punishment,
I was beaten as I bellowed like a locomotive
as if noise could ward off blows.
In this stanza of the poem ‘Breaking Out’, the poet reveals how her parents used
to inflict physical punishment on her. When her parents judged her as ‘truly
wicked’, i.e., disobeying the preset regulations, she received a beating with that
stick. Then she cried and screamed making noises like a steam engine, as if
noise would give a solace to that pain.
Here the words ‘truly wicked’ are rather sarcastic to mock at the definition of
wickedness set by the society.

My mother wielded it more fiercely

but my father far longer and harder.
I’d twist my head in the mirror to inspect.
The poet recalls that her mother used the stick more fiercely than her father.
This might be due to the frustration of giving birth to a disobeying girl child.
But her father’s blows were longer and harder, an indication to the rule of men
in a patriarchal society.

She would then inspect in the mirror the marks of beating by turning her head.

I’d study those red and blue mountain

ranges as on a map that offered escape,
the veins and arteries the roads
I could travel to freedom when i grew.
The poet compares those red and blue stripes to mountain ranges on a map (a
metaphor again) that showed her an escape route. Her veins and arteries looked
like the roads that would help her to escape.

This is well indicative of the impact the beating left on her mind. Those blows
of stick inspired her to break free someday. She made her mind to travel to
liberty when she would grow up.

When I was eleven, after a beating

I took the ruler and smashed it to kindling.
Fingering the splinters I could not believe.
How could this rod prove weaker than me?
It was not that i was never again beaten
but in destroying that stick that had measured my pain
the next day i was an adolescent, not a child.
Now the poem Breaking Out comes to the climax. This stanza contains the all
important event, the breaking of the stick. Structurally this stanza (contains
seven lines) is different too, suggesting the same.
When the poet was eleven, one day she broke the ruler into pieces after a
beating. The word ‘ruler’ has dual meaning here: the measuring tool and the
tool that ruled over her life so far.

With the broken pieces in her hand, she could hardly believe that she could
break it, that it was really weaker than her. This line has a greater implication in
suggesting that the oppressive power generally tends to be weaker than the
oppressed if the latter learns to revolt against the former.

Though it could not end the beating completely, the act was significant in giving
a boost to her confidence. The next day she knew she was an adolescent now,
not a child anymore.

This is not a tale of innocence lost but power

gained : I would not be Sisyphus,
there were things that I should learn to break.
The poet Marge Piercy here assures us that this idea of ‘breaking out’ is not a
destructive one; it’s not a loss of innocence. Rather, it’s all about gaining the
power, a courageous move in the right direction.

The poet pledged not to be like Sisyphus, doing useless domestic chores all day.
She realised there were more such things (or ideas) that she needed to ‘break’ to
claim the freedom she deserves and make the society progress.

These last three lines of the poem ‘Breaking Out‘ are really impressive and
makes the poem a piece of beauty, no doubt.
Summary and Analysis of Father
Returning Home by Dilip Chitre
Dilip Purushottam Chitre was one of the foremost Indian writers and critics of
the post Independence India. Apart from a being a writer, he was also a painter
and a filmmaker. He graduated from the University of Bombay in 1959. He won
the Sahitya Akademi Award (1994) for his Marathi book of poems Ekun
Kavita. Father Returning Home is a short and appealing poem about an old man
in a cosmopolitan city where his own sons and daughters treat him as an alien.
He himself is estranged from the man-made world. Through this poem, Chitre
has denounced the urban rootlessness and alienation.

Summary and Analysis of Father Returning Home by Dilip Chitre

Stanza 1: The first stanza of Father Returning Home describes the train journey
of his father while returning home one evening. The father stands among
commuters in the yellow light of a local compartment. The poet describes his
father’s reaction against the sights of the suburbs that pass by. His father
remains unmoved by the sights because they are too familiar to him. That is
quite normal, isn’t it? We hardly pay attention to those places where we travel
every day, unless the place has something interesting to offer. Same was with
the poet’s father.
The poet then describes his father’s pathetic condition, as he travels during the
rainy season. His clothes become damp and dirty. The black raincoat that he
wears becomes stained with mud. His bag crumbles with the heavy load of the
books.Due to old age, the poet’s father’s eyesight has become poor and
therefore he finds difficulty to move about in the dark.

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The poet says that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word
dropped from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides an
evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if he is no
longer relevant to it. The poet then sees his father hurrying through the long,
grey platform.
The man seems to be as old as the platform, who has been using it as a part of
his routine. He crosses the railway tracks and hurries home through muddy
lanes on a rainy day. This is indicated by his chappals which are sticky with
mud. This stanza portrays the monotonousness of the old man, who sustains the
vagaries of weather as well as the estrangement from the man-made.
Stanza 2: The second stanza, the poet represents the alienation of his father that
he experiences in his own dwelling. The poet tells us that his father drinks a
weak tea and eats a stale chapatti when he comes back home. This shows that
the even his basic requirements are not properly carried out by his family. A
sense of pity for the poet’s father arises in us, what do you think?
The father is then seen going into a contemplative mood after reading some
kind of a philosophical book. He goes to the toilet and contemplates over man’s
alienation from the man-made world. This exhibits that the man is visibly upset
with his predicament. He is terribly shaken when he comes out of the toilet and
trembles while he washes his hands at the wash basin. It seems that he trembled
not only because of the cold water but also due to the thoughts that came into
his mind while he was thinking in the toilet.
The father finds himself all alone in his room as he is written off by his
children.
The children do not interact with their father; they do not share their joys or
sorrows with him. To compensate their company, the father listens to the radio.
Then he goes to sleep. In his sleep, he dreams about his ancestors and
grandchildren.
It seems that he is trying to communicate with his ancestors who had entered the
subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in the past. The dream
mirrors that the old man is either thinking about his past (his ancestors) or his
future (his grandchildren). It is a kind of relief to him from his mundane routine,
devoid of any human contact.

Have you ever felt so alienated like this old man in Father Returning Home?
Theme: The poem, Father Returning Home focuses on the theme of alienation
or estrangement experienced by the aged in their twilight years. Dilip Chitre
talks about his own father and through the poem, we get to know the alienation,
isolation and misery experienced by elderly people, especially in cities.
Style: Dilip Chitre’s poetry follows the tradition of dramatic monologue. In the
poem Father Returning Home, the poet talks about his father’s loneliness and
alienation from the man-made world. He has brought out the emotions of his
father, who is isolated from his family as well as from the outside world. He has
painted the mundane and fatiguing routine of his father in order to highlight the
darkness and misery lurking inside his father’s soul.
Imagery in the poem: The poet uses some fine imagery to describe the lurking
loneliness in the man’s soul as he travels in the local train. To convey the
‘twilight atmosphere’ the poet has used a number of descriptive words in the
poem, like evening train, yellow light, unseeing eyes, his eyes dimmed by age,
fade homeward and gray platform.
An example of imagery is found in the following lines describing the father’s
routine of travelling by a local train,-
“My father travels on the late evening train
Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light
Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes
His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat
Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books
Is falling apart.”
In the above mentioned lines, the pathos of an old father, returning to his
mundane home late in the evening, is highlighted. A wonderful image is used to
describe poet’s father getting down the train. The poet says that he can see his
father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped from a long sentence.’ The
sentence is highly unique and it provides an evocative image of an old man who
gets down from the train as if he is no longer relevant to it. This imagery is used
to depict the monotonousness and meaninglessness in the father’s life.
The imagery of dream has been used to show the connection the poet’s father
has with his past and his future. He dreams about his ancestors and his
grandchildren. Thus, it signifies his feelings that he has suppressed in himself
and cannot express openly.
Therefore, we can conclude that the poem Father Returning Home is
autobiographical in nature. The poem draws a picture of the poet’s father. He
speaks about the loneliness that his father goes through in his everyday life.
Don’t be a silent reader, a thought or two would be appreciated.
How does Dilip Chitre describe his
father’s train journey in ‘Father
Returning Home’?
Father Returning Home is a short and appealing poem about an old
man in a cosmopolitan city where his own sons and daughters treat
him as an alien. He himself is estranged from the man-made world.
Through this poem, Chitre has denounced the urban rootlessness and
alienation. The poem, Father Returning Home focuses on
the theme of alienation or estrangement experienced by the aged in
their twilight years. Dilip Chitre talks about his own father and
through the poem, we get to know the alienation, isolation and misery
experienced by elderly people, especially in cities.
The first stanza of Father Returning Home describes the train journey
of his father while returning home one evening. The father stands
among commuters in the yellow light of a local compartment. The
poet describes his father’s reaction against the sights of the suburbs
that pass by. His father remains unmoved by the sights because they
are too familiar to him. That is quite normal, isn’t it? We hardly pay
attention to those places where we travel every day, unless the place
has something interesting to offer. Same was with the poet’s father.
The poet then describes his father’s pathetic condition, as he travels
during the rainy season. His clothes become damp and dirty. The
black raincoat that he wears becomes stained with mud. His bag
crumbles with the heavy load of the books.
Due to old age, the poet’s father’s eyesight has become poor and
therefore he finds difficulty to move about in the dark. The poet says
that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped
from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides
an evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if
he is no longer relevant to it. The poet then sees his father hurrying
through the long, grey platform. The man seems to be as old as the
platform, who has been using it as a part of his routine. He crosses the
railway tracks and hurries home through muddy lanes on a rainy day.
This is indicated by his chappals which are sticky with mud. This
stanza portrays the monotonousness of the old man, who sustains the
vagaries of weather as well as the estrangement from the man-made.

The second stanza, the poet represents the alienation of his father that
he experiences in his own dwelling. The poet tells us that his father
drinks a weak tea and eats a stale chapatti when he comes back home.
This shows that the even his basic requirements are not properly
carried out by his family. A sense of pity for the poet’s father arises in
us, what do you think?
The father is then seen going into a contemplative mood after reading
some kind of a philosophical book. He goes to the toilet and
contemplates over man’s alienation from the man-made world. This
exhibits that the man is visibly upset with his predicament. He is
terribly shaken when he comes out of the toilet and trembles while he
washes his hands at the wash basin. It seems that he trembled not only
because of the cold water but also due to the thoughts that came into
his mind while he was thinking in the toilet.
The father finds himself all alone in his room as he is written off by
his children. The children do not interact with their father; they do not
share their joys or sorrows with him. To compensate their company,
the father listens to the radio. Then he goes to sleep. In his sleep, he
dreams about his ancestors and grandchildren. It seems that he is
trying to communicate with his ancestors who had entered the
subcontinent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in the past.
The dream mirrors that the old man is either thinking about his past
(his ancestors) or his future (his grandchildren). It is a kind of relief to
him from his mundane routine, devoid of any human contact.
One Thousand Dollars Summary by
O.Henry
“One Thousand Dollars” is a short story by master American short story writer
O. Henry, most famous for his work “The Gift of the Magi,” a Christmas story
commonly dramatized during the holidays. “One Thousand Dollars” concerns a
carefree young man and a surprise inheritance. The story contains O. Henry’s
signatures of witty dialogue and an ironic twist ending. The stories typically
contain ironic reversals that come towards the end and One Thousand Dollars is
no exception. At the start of the story, the protagonist, Robert Gillian, the heir
presumptive of a fortune from his recently deceased wealthy uncle appears to be
an idle, selfish, and irresponsible young man – a spendthrift who has

always had money to spend because of the allowance is given to him by his
uncle.

One Thousand Dollars Summary by O.Henry

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Two men meet in a lawyer’s office. The lawyer, Mr. Tolman, informs the
younger man, called Young Gillian, that his recently deceased uncle has left
him exactly $1,000 as part of his will. Gillian is surprised by the specific sum,
musing that if it had been $10,000, he might have celebrated, and even $50
would be “less trouble.” Mr. Tolman reminds Gillian that as per the terms of the
will, Gillian must provide receipts for anything he buys with the money.Gillian
leaves Mr. Tolman’s office and visits his local social club, where he seeks out a
fellow club member named Old Bryson. He interrupts Bryson as he’s reading,
which annoys Bryson, who asks Gillian to bother someone else, perhaps
someone in the billiards room. Gillian continues with his story anyway.
When he tells Bryson of his inheritance, Bryson is also surprised by the sum.
Gillian’s uncle, Septimus, was worth half a million dollars, at least. Gillian
explains that most of his uncle’s money went towards scientific research and the
building of a hospital. His uncle’s butler and housekeeper each received a ring
and $10, along with a young girl in his uncle’s care, Miss Hayden.Bryson
sarcastically suggests that Gillian spends his money on a necklace for his actress
girlfriend, Miss Lotta Lauriere, and then on a train ride to Idaho, where Gillian
could live on a sheep ranch. Gillian agrees with the first half of this suggestion
and takes a cab to the Columbine Theatre, where Lotta is performing. He goes
backstage to see her, but she is in the middle of a performance and can’t go to
the jewelry shop. He asks a cabbie what he’d do with the money, and the cabbie
says he’d open a bar. He asks a blind beggar the same question, and the beggar
reveals he actually has over $1,000 in his bank account.Gillian goes back to Mr.
Tolman’s office and asks whether Miss Hayden received anything else but the
ring and the paltry $10.
Mr. Tolman says she did not. Gillian visits Mr. Hayden at his late uncle’s house,
where she is in mourning clothes. He lies to her, telling her that there was a
mistake with the will, and she actually received $1000. He hands her his money,
then confesses he loves her. She is kind, but can’t reciprocate. He borrows a pen
and paper to write a receipt for how he spent the money—in an act of love
towards Miss Hayden, the truly deserving party.He returns to Mr. Tolman’s
office, receipt in hand. Mr. Tolman reveals that there was a secret stipulation in
Septimus’ will. If Gillian spent his inheritance in a way that showed good
character, he would receive $50,000. If he spent it wastefully, that same money
would instead go to Miss Hayden. Mr. Tolman goes to read the receipt, but
Gillian snatches it back and shreds it. He lies and claims he spent the money
gambling on horses, and walks out of the office, whistling a happy tune.
Because of his lie, the woman he loves will be wealthy and happy, and he
doesn’t care if she’ll never love him back, or that no one will ever know about
his act of kindness.

Characters: Gillian- is a very bold yet undetermined character. He expresses

himself in a couple different ways throughout the story. In the beginning of the
story, he shows himself as being young and fun, towards the end of the story he
grows up and matures. The conflict in this story is money and sacrifice. The
way he handles the conflict makes him come off as a dynamic character. He
comes off as a dynamic character because of the way he handles the situation.
The thesis of this story has to do with money, greed, love, sacrifice and human
decency. Gillian is a middle aged guy. He does not have much to offer in life
because he usually wastes his money at clubs or parties. He also does not have
very many people that like him so he does not receive much motivation when
dealing with everyday situations in life.
Theme: People can give value to their life by not being greedy. This is
demonstrated when Mr. Gillian gives his $1,000 dollars to Mrs. Hayden. Robert
Gillian shows to be even less selfish when he lies about gambling the money
away so Mrs. Hayden will receive another $50,000 dollars.People can also give
value to their lives by making change for what that person finds to be the better.
The reader can conclude Robert Gillian isn’t the best money manager. This
shows how Robert Gillian is known to be unwise with money.
Solved Question: Why does Gillian give miss Hayden the one thousand
dollars?
Gillian gave Miss Hayden the $1,000.00 because he felt it was the right thing to
do. She was left nothing by his Uncle, and he wanted to make it right.tells her
he loves her; she apologizes. because she won’t or can’t accept his love. He
adds the following postscript; “Paid by the black sheep, Robert Gillian, $1,000
on account of the eternal happiness, owed by Heaven to the best and dearest
woman on earth.Afterward, he returns to the solicitors’ office where he learns of
the will’s final terms. They ask him what he’s done with the money; there are
other conditions he was unaware of, “If your disposal of the money in question
has been prudent, wise, or unselfish, it is in our power to hand you over bonds
to the value of $50,000, which has stories been placed in our hands for that
purpose.