THE POEM

Marge Piercy who was born in Detroit, is

known as a feminist writer. Her poem,
Breaking Out was first published in the
Harbor Review in 1984. The poem
portrays the double oppression faced by a
girl, for being a girl child and a child, at
the same time. The poem depicts how the
girl wants to break out from the
conventional norms of the society which
is responsible for the oppression.

Piercy's "Breaking Out" holds meaning in terms

of its technique and thematic elements. Both
aspects contribute to the poem's overall meaning
of activism and the need to forge a statement of
defiance in a world where conformity is expected
and enforced. Piercy's poem is one of
transformation, where individuals can envision
what they can be as opposed to what is expected
of them. From a structural point of view, there is no
definite convention to which the poem must
adhere. Stanzas of four lines and three lines
alternate. There is no defined rhyme scheme.

In its openness of form, Piercy seeks to

give articulation to the condition of
freedom that the subject of the
poem, herself as a child, experiences
at its end. Piercy delivers a poem
from a narrative point of view,
reflective of her own growth from a
child to an adult. The experience of
the ruler and the discipline she
experienced at its hand becomes the

The surface meaning of the poem is a reflection about

how Piercy as a child experienced discipline in the form
of beatings with a wooden yardstick. From this, the
sensory imagery utilized in the poem brings out the
narrative frame of reference from the child's point of
view. The initial sight of the closet doors, "leaning
together like gossips," establishes the exposition for
the entirety of the poem. The description of the
vacuum bag as "stuffed with sausage" is another
example of the sensory imagery in the poem, as is the
detail of how she responded when she was beaten with
the meter stick as one who "bellowed like a
locomotive."

 The imagery of the poem is one that

combines a sense of oppression with
liberation. Both dynamics are critical to the
appreciation of the poem. The oppressive
tendencies can be seen in the images of
domesticity. This is evident in the description
of the speaker's mother's life with lines such
as "to see my mother removing daily/ the
sludge the air lay down like a snail's track" or
"housewife scrubbing/ on raw knees as the
factory rained ash."

 This inward imagery of domesticity is contrasted

with the extroverted pictures of liberation that is
evident in the lines, "red and blue mountain/ ranges
on a map that offered escape" and "I could travel to
freedom when I grew." In utilizing images that
represent oppression and liberation, it becomes clear
that Piercy is suggesting that her childhood was
positioned between the world of expectation and
conformity, representing the silencing of voice, and
one of liberation and transformation, involving a
departure from it. The poetic devices in the poem
help to enhance the poem's thematic function.

The poem's themes reside in the struggle towards liberation.

The titular concept refers to a forcible repudiation of a
contingency that silences voice. This repression is seen on
two levels in the poem. The first is the repression of
women in the form of imposed domesticity. The speaker of
the poem reacts with intense rejection towards a life where
she is told what to do and how to live: "... as if weary of
housework as I,/ who swore I would never dust or sweep."
Her reaction is an indication that the predicament women
face is one where they are forced into a life of domesticity
with limited opportunities for freedom and voice. It is an
existence tethered to routine, denying freedom, and
steeped in monotonous repetition.

The invocation of Sisyphus from the school lesson is

reflective of how the speaker perceives domestic life.
The second level of repression exists in the parent/
child dynamic. The child speaks of being beaten by
both parents with the "wooden yardstick." Her
breaking of the rule enables the speaker to move
into "power gained." The ability to assert her voice
in the face of parental repression represents her
voice authenticated and her narrative validated. She
has clearly established that she will not be Sisyphus
in her act of breaking the yardstick. It is this in which
the "breaking out" element is most demonstrative.

 Piercy describes her writing as emerging from a singular

vision. It is a vision that she believes unifies her process
and products of thought: "I dont really differentiate
between writing a love poem or a poem about a blue heron,
or a poem about a demonstration or a poem about a Jewish
holiday. To me, its all one vision. This vision is one where
individual voice is revealed. This is evident in "Breaking
Out." Bill Moyers argues that Piercy's gift is evident when
she "forges imaginative communities centered in day-to-day
mature relationships and on the awareness that human
capacity cannot be separated from specific individual
circumstances." The transformative moment in which
Piercy breaks the ruler and breaks out into a world of
"power gained" becomes central to the poem.

 Lines 1-7: These lines describe the first political act led by a girl who is
subjected to endless humiliation and domestic chores. She asks the
readers if they want her to tell them about her first political act. There
she describes the circumstances that led her to take her first act that
is to break free from the conventional norms of a patriarchal society.
She mentions about two doors which are usually open and leaning
against each other in a way that seems like they are gossiping and
whispering secrets into each others ears. The two doors are of two
opinions for her- one to maintain the status quo and endure all the
humiliation and exploitation; two, to break away from the traditional
rules of a biased society where a woman is ill-treated and is put
through limitless mortifications and thankless domestic chores.
She looks on the different household objects used for carrying out
different chores. First, there is a laundry machine used to wring out or
iron damp clothes. It is used to iron even those clothes which require
no ironing like bed sheets, towels and her fathers undergarments.

 Lines 8-14: She looks at an old style vacuum cleaner

standing vertical on the ground with its filter bag
stuffed with dust. She recalls the roaring and loud
sound made by the vacuum cleaner when its bag is
deflated. She compares her life to that of the cleaner,
she says the sound made by the cleaner shows as if it
is tired of dust-suction as she is. This makes her swear
that she would not dust or sweep when she would grow
up. She despicably watches her mother remove the
filth each day, accumulated daily due to the emissions
from the factory. The laundry machine and the vacuum
cleaner are symbols of the endless plodding which is a
part of a womans life.

 Lines 15-21: When the girl reads about Sisyphus in

school, she was reminded of her mother. Sisyphus was a
Greek King, who was punished because of showing
disrespect to Zeus and had to toll an immense boulder
up a hill, only to watch it roll back down the hill and had
to repeat the action forever. The girl compares Sisyphus
to her mom. Her mom, as a housewife is allocated the
duty of many household chores. She has to kneel down
on bare knees to broom and mop out the filth emitted
by factories. The poet then looks at the yardstick, poor
in texture and quality. The yardstick has become dusty
with chalk marks used to her mother to measure the
length of the hem of clothes to tailor them.

 Lines 22-32: The yardstick is also used to punish the girl by

her parents when they find her mischievous. The girl is
brutally beaten up by her parents and she howls and
screams like a railway engine as if the screams would lessen
her pain. She says her mothers blows are fierce while her
fathers are longer and harder. There is an irony in this,
because the girls mother who herself is a victim of the
patriarchal society is also the reason of her daughters
oppression. After the beatings, she turns her head towards
the mirror to investigate her lashes. The lashes look like
mountain ranges on a map, showing her an escape route. On
the other hand, the arteries and veins on her back remind
her of the ridges in the mountains, makes her believe that
she would travel one day to gain independence.

 Lines 33-42:
She describes the incident that signaled her entry into adolescence. She
talks about the incident that took place when she was eleven. One day
after the beatings from her parents, she broke the stick which was used
for punishing her. She stared at the broken pieces of the stick and could
not believe that it was she who gathered courage to break it. She
wondered how the stick was weaker than her. She says that it was not
that after breaking the stick, she was not beaten by her parents but by
destroying the instrument of her oppression, she has led herself into
adolescence. Though, biologically she was still a child. She realized that
there are some things that should be broken, like old conventions,
restrictions put on women. The poet tells us that this story of the girl
looks like the story of someone who lost her innocence, who gained
power- the power to break out from the confinements of the narrow
domestic walls and customs. It the power which makes her promise that
she would not be another Sisyphus like her mother.