written largely about gender issues, particularly (and obviously) women's rights to equal

opportunity and equal treatment. However, almost every writer that we've read that dealt

with such issues also had other issues that of which they wanted to make us (the readers)

aware. Gender oppression is not the only kind of oppression, as we all know. I have tried to

choose a wide variety of women writers in order to explore more than just gender issues (but

still including gender issues), things such as race, heritage, culture, and individuality. Many

writers can deal with multiple issues at once, but the mark of a great writer is if she can do so

effectively, with regards to each issue.

Audre Lorde once referred to herself as a "black feminine lesbian warrior poet." (It

is therefore befitting that Lorde writes about, among other things, race issues, gender issues,

lesbian issues, and identity issues.) Along with this self-prescribed stance taken by Lorde

came an intense desire on the part of the writer to learn more about the ancient matriarchal

myths of Africa; in doing so, Lorde wanted to learn more about her o

black woman; she is telling us that black can be good, that white is not necessarily always

and the first two lines. In the first two lines of "The Waltz," the narrator says aloud (as

own special languages, with their own special styles, unique to each writer. Not only that, in

that their son has a fever. He sharply reproaches her for her inattention: "If it was not a

the stylistic tendencies associated with magical realism, because she conveys such

(In Ceremony, she does the same thing, but this time the stories are written in poetic form

mother." Here we immediately have an archetypal contrast of light versus dark; white

conversations between her own mother and her mother's friends in the kitchen.

special importance, perhaps superior in relevance to the poem. She begins the first line with

distance from her (then-considered) extremely lewd subject matter by writing with an air of

her public facade that serves to mask the discomfort.

reinforced in the end, when the narrator smiles and continues waltzing, reminding us that

as Corn Woman, Silva as the sun-god), Silko reinforces her own cultural ideals, while at the

Lorde writes the poem in free verse form, as she does most of her poems. The

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3935
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page double spaced)