Mary Oliver is an American poet born September 10, 1935.
“Singapore appeared in House of Light.” Oliver’s main theme continues to be and interaction between the human world and the natural world. “Throughout her life, she has traveled to many countries and composed poetry based on some of her insights from those countries.” When we think about good jobs we think of doctors, lawyers, or even construction workers. Do we ever think about the cleaning businesses or the dumpster divers? “Singapore” is a social poem, that explains how everyone looks at their life compared to the rest of society. It reflects on the social norm of the city of Singapore.
” A Raisin in the Sun” is similar to the poem “Singapore” in several different ways. As an individual, you always want to have a secure job and not want to be viewed as different, or not normal. The job someone has is not always the job that one chooses. Lorraine Hansberry is the author of ” A Raisin in the Sun”, which was one of her first plays. “A Raisin In the Sun is based on her childhood experiences of desegregating a white neighborhood.” When we think of African American women back in the 1960’s we think of the housewives, maids, or women who clean just to make a living.
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At the beginning of Mary Oliver’s “Singapore,” she gives us a brief vision of what she has seen as she’s walking into the women’s restroom. ” In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open. A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.” Oliver is surprised to see a woman cleaning a toilet bowl. Oliver is using poetry to say what she hopes life would be like. In reality, there are many different people who do this exact same job, one is Ruth from ” A Raisin in the Sun.” Ruth cleaned houses for rich white people and was also a housewife. She was not ashamed of her job as long as it helped financially take care of her son Travis.
When her mother-in-law Lena Younger brought a house and didn’t have money to financially support the house Ruth explained how she would work harder.”Lena – I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago… I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to – but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!!”
Do you believe if they could leave they would? Mary Oliver goes back and forth between reality and thoughts. This woman lived in a country where being a woman wasn’t exactly a blessing, and the idea of a working woman was still very taboo. Just like Walter Lee wanted to get the family out of her thoughts and actual reality. ” Disgust argued in my stomach and I felt, in my back pocket for my ticket.” I believe Oliver had thoughts on giving the woman her ticket to get out of Singapore. Walter Lee also wanted to get his family out of a roach-infested house by investing in liquor business. “Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be ’bout thirty thousand, see. That be ten thousand each. Course, there’s a couple of hundreds you got to pay so’s you don’t spend your life just waiting for them clowns to let your license get approved.” “Walter believes that investing a whole lot of money will earn his family their fortune.”
Lena and the woman in ” Singapore” are both perceiving to be in content with their lifestyle.”Son – I come from five generations of people who were slaves and sharecroppers – but ain’t nobody in my family never let anybody pay ’em no money that was a way of telling us we weren’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. (Raising her eyes and looking at him) We ain’t never been that – dead inside.” Lena is explaining that she comes from a proud family and that they have never considered themselves poor no matter what they did to take care of themselves. ” She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?” Even though the lady cleaning may not have been in the best spot she still continues to smile. Nobody should get either job honestly because it isn’t right to pity someone like that.
Imagery plays a huge role in both of these pieces. Oliver compares reality and nature while Hansberry has the Younger family compare their lives to a raisin in the sun.”A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain rising and falling.” In her imagination she sees a woman standing in front of a beautiful fountain or waterfall but in reality it is just a dirty flushing toilet. With nature symbolism, the author tries to compare the woman to nature in an effort to demonstrate beauty in such a strange situation.
