Question

In what way does Marge Piercy's poem, 'Breaking Out' depict a tale "not of innocence lost, but of power gained"? How are the images in the poem aligned with the poet's emotions?

Answer 1

In these lines, a girl, who is subjected to endless humiliation and domestic chores as a girl, asks the readers if they want her to tell them about her first political act. She describes the incidents that led her to make her first political act, i.e., a rebellion to break away from the conventional norms of a patriarchal and biased society. She says that she sees two doors that are usually open, leaning against each other in a way that it seems that they are gossiping, and whispering secrets into each others’ ears. They are inclined in such a way that makes a triangular room, a closet with their edges. Presumably, the two open doors can be viewed as two options for her—one to maintain the status quo and silently endure all the oppression and humiliation; two, to break away from the conventional norms of a biased society, wherein a woman is treated as an inferior human being and subjected to endless humiliations and thankless domestic chores. Then she looks at the household objects which are used for doing different chores. First, there is a laundry machine, that is used for wringing out or ironing damp clothes. It is used for ironing even those clothes, which require no ironing like bedsheets, towels and her father’s undergarments.

The speaker in the poem, a girl-child, sees her mother doing endless domestic chores as a routine affair. It is through her mother’s plight and her own that she is suggesting the role of women in society and their miserable condition. Most of the women are treated as lesser humans and made do all the household chores, without giving them anything in return. Rather being thanked and respected for taking all the burden of the household chores on their shoulders, they are tortured, physically abused and ill-treated. The speaker in the poem sees her mother doing tiring domestic chores like washing and ironing the clothes, cleaning and moping the floor on a perpetual basis. The use of words with ‘ing’ verb form like ‘ironing’, ‘removing’ and ‘scrubbing’ highlight the mundane and never-ending domestic chores of the speaker’s mother. She is so taken aback by the drudgery work done by her mother that she compares her with the Greek King, Sisyphus, who was punished and had to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down the hill- and to repeat his action forever:

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 factories rained ash.

It seems that the speaker, who is a girl-child is also subjected to endless humiliation and household chores. That is why she hates these chores and promises to herself that she would not do this drudgery work, once she gains her freedom:

who swore I would never dust or sweep

after I left home, who hated

to see my mother removing daily

the sludge the air lay down like a snail’s track

The above stanza is suggestive of the poor conditions under which a woman has to work. She has to remove all the household dust regardless of its effect on her health.

The speaker remembers how mercilessly she is beaten by her parents for various offences. Her mother, who is herself a woman, does not spare the rod. This is the irony of the situation. She is beaten black and blue that makes her body look like a map with mountain ranges. The ridges make her think of the arteries and veins. They remind her that there is a road to freedom. Finally, the speaker does her first political act by breaking the stick used to punish her. It is suggestive of her first act of gaining freedom. It gives her an identity that she is not a meek, submissive child any more, but is an adolescent, who has a thinking of her own and wants to be treated like an adult.