Readers of poetry can interpret poems in a number of different ways, while never having a wrong answer. Identity is a common theme in poetry because people identify themselves in many ways. One can also learn a lot about a poet and how they identify themselves through their works. In Chapter 7, we learned that social identity has a substantial impact on poetry. According to Helen Vendler, “when you read a poem with a clearly identified speaker, you need to ask yourself which one or more of his or her inevitably many identities the writer is invoking” (Vendler p214). The ability to understand the poet’s identity helps readers have a better understanding of the poem itself and what kind of experience the poet was writing about because it can also make them more relatable.
One poem included in Chapter 7 that deals with poetry and social identity is The Little Black Boy by William Blake. William Blake’s poem The Little Black Boy is about a young child who is black because that is the color of his skin, but he feels as if his “soul is white.” In this poem, the young boy sits with his mother asking him innocent questions. His mother teaches him about who he is and explains the world to him. The boy seems to identify as both black and white, but the world just sees him as black because that’s what they physically see. In society, he is expected to endure hardships and troubles, so that people who are white do not have to and will live easier lives. The poem ends in a hopeful yet heartbreaking way, with the young boy noting that if he is seen as white, he will be loved.
William Blake was born in London; however, one can tell through The Little Black Boy that despite the color of his skin, Blake does identify with people who are African American in some way, and he can relate to them. One can also tell that Blake is supportive of integration through the way that he wrote the poem, and through the language that he uses. When he writes “And be like him, and he will then love me” (Vendler p232), Blake is showing the boy’s desire to be similar to someone else who has more privileges in society than he does. The use of imagery in this poem helps the readers to understand the extent of the suffering that black people go through because they are seen as inferior because of their skin color.
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The Little Black Boy was written in 1789, which was one year after the three-fifths compromise was created. In the three-fifths compromise, slaves were only counted as three-fifths of a person in the census for tax purposes and representation in Congress (Three-Fifths Compromise). Inequality, or more specifically, slavery is one of the themes in The Little Black Boy, and the young boy is forced to live a certain way because of the color of his skin, despite not necessarily relating to it. One can reach the conclusion that William Blake supports equality for people of different races, and one can assume that he supports equality for people of different genders, races, religious groups, etc. In The Little Black Boy, readers can conclude that Blake is an open-minded individual just from the inclusiveness that he centers the poem around.
Another poem included in Chapter 7 that deals with social identity is The Applicant by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath’s poem, The Applicant, is about how one identifies one’s self and what they consider to be a part of who they are. The Applicant starts off with a question: “First, are you our sort of a person?” (Vendler p234). Throughout the rest of the poem, there are various offers to give the reader whatever it is that they are missing and give them solutions to “fix” things about one’s self. Not only are there offers from the subjects of the poem, but they are also willing to accept whoever they are talking to, whether it is the reader or not, by saying “It works, there is nothing wrong with it” (Vendler p234). There is strong imagery used throughout the entire poem, and “Will you marry it?” and “talk” are repeated various times. “Will you marry it?” is interpreted in two different parts. In the first part, the phrase can be taken literally, asking the man if he will marry the woman, but in doing so, the man is also being asked to marry the responsibilities of the woman, such as the cooking and cleaning.
One of the themes of The Applicant is femininity. In this poem, a woman – or a group of women – is talking to a male applicant. Throughout the poem, readers can figure out that the man has everything he needs, except for a woman. He is desperately searching for a wife, and the speakers of the poem tell him not to cry. The speakers of the poem also tell the man that “It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk” (Vendler p234). These are the qualities that the applicant is missing and wants in his wife. Women are empowered by the things that they are capable of, and the women in the poem can do many things that the man cannot, so they have a lot to offer him.
The Applicant reveals a lot about Sylvia Plath and the kind of person she was. Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. She was accepting of others, despite having differences, which can indicate that she felt lonely or that she felt like an outsider. Even if she did not personally feel this way, one can conclude that she could relate to those she did and she felt close to them. Sylvia Plath felt the need to take people under her wing and make them feel like they belonged while holding onto their differences and helping to accept them, or she longed for this kind of comfort in her own life. This is seen in line 27 of the poem “I have the ticket for that” (Vendler 234). This line shows promise and a willingness to help others, and one can conclude that Plath liked the feeling of helping others.
Sylvia Plath ended up committing suicide when she was thirty years old due to suffering from depression. The subject of The Applicant longs for more than what he already has, which is reflective of Plath’s personal life. She longed for happiness, and something better than what she had in her life, though it is not clear through her poetry what exactly would help her with her depression.
Both William Blake’s The Little Black Boy and Sylvia Plath’s The Applicant give us, as readers, a look into the personal identities of the authors, and teach us who they were and what they stood for. We know that they were similar to one another in that their poems showed glimpses of hope for a more united future, which leads us to the conclusion that they both believed in equality and wanted society to love and accept one another. In addition to the relation of these poems to their authors, there is an established identity in both The Little Black Boy and The Applicant.
William Blake’s The Little Black Boy and Sylvia Plath’s The Applicant help readers understand social identity, and the social groups that the authors identified themselves with. Upon doing this, readers can comprehend the poem in a different way because they can apply context to it and make sense of it. When one reads a poem, one identifies the speaker and the social identity of the speaker, which helps to identify and understand the personal background of the author. Understanding the author and what they are writing about can even help us to interpret the poem that relates to our own lives.
