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Amy Lowell's Patterns

Decent Essays

Amy Lowell defines the hopeful liberty of women in the 20th century through a central theme in the poem "Patterns". The woman's dreams of eluding from the boundaries that society has placed on her fritters away when she learns of her lover’s untimely death. She restricts herself from feeling to make it seem as if there is “not softness anywhere” about her. Due to being constricted by “whalebone and brocade,” the speaker feels like she is forced to live up to the rules that society enforces upon her. The numerous images that the speaker uses in this poem like the fluid motions of the flowers and water drops, the dressand her daydreams of her lover all play an important part in developing the theme of Freedom. At the beginning of "Patterns", the speaker illustrates daffodils dancing freely in the wind. This use of imagery is a tool to appeal to the audiences' sense of sight, these flowers are given movement, and they are described as, "blowing," and "Fluttering in the breeze,” This description produces a sense of flexibility. The woman has a desire to be like the flowers, self-confident and carefree. The second stanza of the poem begins with the woman describing the water in the marble fountain. The "plashing of water drops" demonstrates liquid in motion. She notices such little details in a fountain which shows how much the woman aspires to be free and able to move about as she wishes. The buoyant movement of the flowers and the water represents a way of life that

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