Sadie and Maud Essay
University of Phoenix
Eng120
Sadie and Maud Essay
This poem immediately begins with the differences in the paths of the two sisters. Maud may have been the achiever, the one chosen to excel and become a success. Maud was the sister who, if not the brightest, was certainly the least adventuresome, and the more dutiful, of the two. The connotation that Sadie stayed at home could be interpreted in a number of ways. Did Sadie live at home with her parents and do nothing as Maud went to college Did she merely stay in their hometown but lived independent of their parents’ home? There is no indication that Maud went away to college and attained any measure of independence just that she attended college and Sadie did not. Maud does not strike one as the type to leave home.
Sadie, on the other hand, delved into life’s pleasures with a passion. This author suspects she may have been a woman who craved excitement and physical gratification. The metaphor “Sadie scraped life with a fine-tooth comb” (Brooks, 1963), is an appropriate description for a woman who did not conform to the norms of her time but lived life to the fullest. The next line in the poem alludes to the fact that Sadie did not shy away from pleasure or trouble and was a woman who experienced a fair share of both. It is hard to believe that a young woman who “…didn’t leave a tangle in. Her comb found every strand” (Brooks, 1963) could make it through life without difficulties. The word “chit” is defined in The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, as an insolent, audacious, and conceited young woman.
The poem makes no mention of the age of the sisters. Was Maud the oldest and therefore the first to reach college age? Could they have been twins who were so vastly different that their paths, dreams, and desires were exactly the opposite? The good twin bad twin situation; one a good girl who does everything expected of her and the other a girl