Cecil Eddy
Mrs. Calvert
English AP12
June 30, 2011
The Century Quilt
In the poem The Century Quilt, by Marilyn Nelson Waniek, a women reminisces about finding a quilt that gives her a feeling of connection to her families past. Marilyn uses both narrative viewpoints and imagery to develop a meaning for the Century Quilt, which is a kind of connection to her families past and to her own.
This quilt made the the women feel at ease when she was under it it made her feel as though she would “have good dreams for a hundred years under this quilt,” which is like what her grandmother would have experienced and would connect her with her realtives. From this connection you could probably guess that this women is most likely of Native American decent. Waniek's grandmother would bring a quilt that is her grandmother's own connection and Waniek and her sister would play with it which is a sort of first time connection with this kind of quilt. Because of these memories this received from her childhood she desires a quilt that will help here relive these experiences that gave her a connection with her family. The imagery portrayed in her and her sister playing with her Meema's quilt gives a feeling of happiness that the quilt brought and demonstrates the connection and love for the quilt.
The quilt also gives a sense of connection to the women family before her. The “Six Van Dyke brown squares, two white ones, and one squared yellow brown” connects the grandfather's white family, Memma's yellow sisters and her mothers yellow cheeks. The quilt is all together a
Eddy 2 symbol for her family tree. This quilt is overall a link to not just her childhood, but her ancestors too.
The narrative viewpoints that the women portrays also connects her to her childhood and her family. The quilt is the way for her to connect to her grandmother as she uses a first person viewpoint when she refers to her grandmother wanting to wrap herself in the folds and eventually