Gwen Harwood Gender Analysis

The patriarchy of the society within the context of which poet Gwen Harwood constructed her poetry, is observed, sometimes criticized and often challenged in the collection of poems found in the text 'Gwen Harwood, Selected Poems'. The representation of the images of men, women and gender differences to which a society consciously or unconsciously subscribes are captured through her writings. Harwoods construction of the poems 'Prize Giving' and 'Night Thoughts: Baby & Demon' exemplify some of the techniques used by the poet in illustrating the tendency of society to categorize the roles and expectations of the male and female. In focusing on the egotistic values of the stereotypical male in 'Prize-Giving', Harwood draws on the self-destruction of Eisenbarts character and the reversal of roles and possession of power to accentuate societys conditioning and subscription of the male and female gender. In the poem 'Night Thoughts: Baby & Demon', the reader is positioned to automatically associate the baby to the ignorant, undemanding, innocent female, and the clever, deceitful demon and dominating persona to the male. These assumptions are presented as society's unconscious way of assigning roles and

Hence a reversal of roles accentuate the marginalising and deprivations of the female gender, yet at the same time presents the omnipotence and ability of the feminine to conquer the masculine.

'And drink your juices dry, my dear,

By doing this, the love and romance of the original poem and the innocence of the lullaby are, perhaps, ridiculed and traded for the lust of the persona in 'Night Thoughts: Baby & Demon'. This positions the male persona to be portrayed as being wanting 'everything', and hence associates the masculine gender with greed and egotistical values. The marginalising of the female character as merely an object of desire and comfort for the male persona also reflects the disempowering of the female gender in a patriarchal society.