The Young Housewife -William Carlos
When I first read this poem, I read it from the perspective of the housewife’ husband. At first, it didn’t make sense and then I realized this was written from the view of a stranger. When I read it from that vantage point I was a little unnerved. This, to me, sounded very much like a man stalking his prey. When I read the line “I pass solitary in my car” I imagined someone slowly driving by, studying and surveying their interest. There were three words in this poem that made the overall tone dark and threatening: “solitary”, “noiseless”, and “smiling”.
The imagery that played through my mind was a man driving his car by slowly, once, twice, or more. Until the woman comes out of the house for the “ice-man”. He then looks her over, from her hair to her clothing. When she catches him looking, he bows his head and gives her a toothy smile.
This can be the beginning of a psychological movie…
One response so far
I agree that the poem is in the perspective of a stranger watching the housewife, and that the tone of the poem is overall dark and creepy. What I noticed in addition to the things you mentioned, was that the narrator describes the housewife as wearing “negligee behind/the wooden walls of her husband’s house”. Whether the narrator sees this or he imagines it, it’s nonetheless creepy that he is watching/fantasizing about her in her undergarments. His description of her being a “fallen leaf” is also a bit perturbing because that means he views her as fragile, which is usually a quality that, as you mentioned, a stalker would look for in a victim.