Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Winifred Virginia Jackson’s "Wimin’s Work" is a dialect-driven narrative poem that explores themes of gender roles, labor, autonomy, and oppression in rural life. The poem’s ballad meter (alternating tetrameter and trimeter, with an ABCB rhyme scheme) reinforces its folk-like storytelling quality, while its use of regional vernacular adds authenticity and emphasizes the hardships of its characters.

The poem tells the story of Daise, a woman who marries John and soon finds herself resisting his expectations. Unlike the other local women—“Ede er Kate er them”—who are strong and endure physical labor without complaint, Daise clearly delineates the boundary between men’s and women’s work: “’T?wuz wimin’s work ter bake; / Ter wash an’ iron; scrub an’ mend; / An’ hayin’ time she’d rake.” She acknowledges the extent of her responsibilities, which already include tasks outside the home—raking, milking, and tending livestock—but she refuses to engage in what she sees as men’s duties, such as fence repair, wood chopping, and rock clearing. Her stance, “Daise sot ter make things plain”, presents her as pragmatic rather than rebellious, yet John’s refusal to accept her boundaries sets the stage for conflict.

John, embodying the patriarchal expectation of total female submission, attempts to “break her in” as he would a farm animal. The poem hints at domestic violence—a rumor spreads that “John held Daise by her yaller hair / An? holler?d fit ter craze”. Mrs. Bartlett, a neighborly figure representing the community’s passive oversight, visits in an attempt to uncover the truth. However, John performs religious piety—“An? said of Grace, an? prayed at night / An? read a Chapter then”—and treats Mrs. Bartlett “as nice as pie”, ensuring that public perception remains in his favor. His duplicity suggests the power of social appearances and the complicity of community norms in upholding male dominance.

As the seasons pass, Daise’s resistance turns inward, manifesting as mental deterioration, which Jackson depicts with gothic and supernatural imagery. When John overworks her during the hay harvest, she begins to suffer hallucinations, claiming the fir trees “stood there like sentinels by day, / But riz at dusk an’ reeled”, and that screech owls were lost souls tormented by the devil. The increasing unreality of her world suggests psychological breakdown under oppression. Eventually, she reaches a spiritual transcendence, believing that God has “made of her a flower / That waited of His call”. Her comparison of herself to a flower suggests both fragility and an escape from John’s world of brute labor.

Despite her conviction, John and a farmhand, Luke, attempt to “make her budge”, suggesting that even in her breakdown, Daise remains an obstacle to their expectations. The poem ends starkly: “Up ter the day she died”. The passive phrasing avoids specifying how she died, leaving open the possibility of natural decline, suicide, or even violence at John’s hands.

Jackson’s use of dialect and folk storytelling devices deepens the realism of the narrative, making "Wimin’s Work" both a regional ballad and a universal tragedy. The gendered division of labor, the failure of social intervention, and the psychological toll of oppression resonate beyond the poem’s rural setting. Through its repetitive phrasing, clipped syntax, and restrained emotional tone, the poem emphasizes the inevitability of Daise’s fate, positioning her as a woman who refused to conform—and suffered the consequences in a world unwilling to accommodate her defiance.

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