Hazel Tells Laverne By Katharyn Howd Dec

“Hazel tells LaVerne”, written by Katharyn Howd Machan, shows how women were treated in the past society (Machan 213). The poem alludes to the famous fairy tale, The Frog Prince, by the Brothers Grimm. Hazel recounts the night she met a strange frog when cleaning the bathroom of the Howard Johnsons hotel. In the original fairy tale, a princess loses her golden ball in the spring, and a frog tells her that he will find the ball only if she takes him home and loves him for three days. After three days, the frog becomes a prince and the two lives happily ever after. However, in the poem, the frog gets flushed down three times, and Hazel remains as a poor hotel maid. Though, the poem ends unhappily it has a much deeper meaning than just a fairy tale.
Hazel represents the low authority of women in the past society. Women in the past were uneducated, treated contemptuously, and ignored by men. The structure of the poem is not well organized, no punctuation, not even a period at the end, and the language used is reminiscent of southern broken English. This structure emphasizes the notion held by the society that women are illiterate and uneducated. Hazel’s job, which is a hotel maid, symbolizes the hierarchy of women in society in which they were only able to have low and minimal skilled positions. Machan, the poet, describes Hazel as an inferior woman who cannot even think nor dream of a better life. Women in the past lacked self-confidence and pride to go against the power of men. Also, they lived dependent upon men. The only way for the hotel maid to become a princess and get out of her miserable life was to kiss a frog, which was a powerful man in real