The Climax of I Want You Women Up North to Know :: Want You Women Up North to Know

Lines 85-97 of Tillie Olsens first produce poem I Want You Women Up North to K in a flash concord the climactic turning point of this poem, and the language and form reflect this change. rather of being humble and disjointed victims who remain mostly anonymous, the workers ar change into an angry and unified group of distinct individuals. This shift in sensory system is accomplished by three devices imagery, grouping, and capitalisation of proper names. The imagery in this passage helps turn the tone of the poem from victimization to anger. In rund throw to fire images, the overall language is completely stripped down to patent ugliness. In previous lines, the sordidness has been intermixed with cheerful euphemisms the agonizing work is an penetrative dance (24) the trembling hands are white gulls (22) the cough is gay (25). But in these later lines, all aesthetically pleasing equipment casualty vanish, leaving sweet and blood (85), naked andbony children (89), and a frami ng body (95). Another way this passage turns the mood of the poem is by using grouping and form to link the workers together, both in demonstration and appearance. Previously, each workers situation has been treated as an uncaring story, literally separated from the others by a blank line. However, lines 85-97 are displace together with pop spaces, suggesting unity by the very appearance of the lines. All of the grievances are briefly repeated, and then a sequence of ands binds the one-sentence recaps together. Yet in cattiness of this sense of solidarity, each persons story is given its own sentence with a period boundary, subtly emphasizing their individual sizeableness solidarity is acceptable, however anonymity is not. A final significant device in this passage is the use of capitalization. The proper names of the workers have been sporadically capitalized early in the poem, but here they are all consistent and correct. Again, this is an tenseness on individual importanc e, an insistence that each of these people deserves a grotesque proper name. The earlier all-lowercase names like catalina rodiguez (16) actually blend into the lines of poetry, suggesting crouching and obscurity, but here the uppercase letters in their names stand out clearly from other words. Interestingly, although the personal names are capitalized, christ (96) is go away in lowercase, similar to the previous treatment of god (57, 60, 62). This contrast with the capitalization of the worker names implies that God and Christ have failed the workers and are now overshadowed by a budding self-confidence in the workers.