Preview

The Century Quilt By Marilyn Nelson Waniek

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
376 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Century Quilt By Marilyn Nelson Waniek
“The Century Quilt” by Marilyn Nelson Waniek shows to oneself that they can be connected through past and future in ways you can only feel. The narrator feels a personal bond to this blanket and the memories it brings back. In this poem, a simple quilt is used as a nexus, linking the narrator to her past and what will one day come. Through using time shifts and warm, peaceful tones, the speaker’s intricate values of the quilt is demonstrated. Poems are often divided into stanzas, this one divided into three. The three stanzas represent a specific time in history, past, present, and future. The first stanza is viewed as the narrator looking back to the past of her great grandmother’s blanket. Lines 9 and 10 say, “I remembered how I’d
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Summary Of The Century Quilt
    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary Of The Century Quilt

    It is important to look forward to the future while still remembering the past. In Marilyn Nelson Waniek’s poem “The Century Quilt,” a comfortable tone and detailed symbolism work together to reveal how a family heirloom can be both a reminder of heritage and as well as a representation of dreams for the future. Throughout the poem, the poet’s cozy tone elicits a sense of happy nostalgia, showing the character’s contentment with the thoughts that the quilt causes her to reflect upon. Phrases such as, “Each square holds a sweet gum leaf whose fingers I imagine would caress me into the silence,” and “I think I’d have good dreams for a hundred years under this quilt, as Meema must have” show that she takes comfort in her remembrance. This conveys…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of The Century Quilt
    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary Of The Century Quilt

    Even after we are gone the memories never seem to fade away, they reside in our family and the things that surround them. In Wanieks’ poem “The Century Quilt” a family uses a century quilt to keep their memories together as generations pass; utilizing tone, imagery and dedication to convey a complex meaning of the speakers attributes to the century quilt. In the poem “The Century Quilt’ the speaker develops a complex meaning through imagery when describing the colors, fabric and memories that have gone with the family for years. The speaker talks about a particular quilt that she remembered as a child.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Figurative Language In The Century Quilt By Sarah Mary Taylor
    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Figurative Language In The Century Quilt By Sarah Mary Taylor

    “We’d crawl in shame in the emptiness we’d made in our own father’s backyard,” pens Mary Oliver regarding the shame that she would feel for cutting the black walnut tree a symbol of her family. In a similar manner, Sarah Mary Taylor writes about a quilt that the speaker obtains in her youth and how she hopes that it will remain a symbol for her family and life. In order to effectively convey the symbolism of their families, both authors employ figurative language and imagery that supports their symbolic meaning.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Journal on My Grandmother Would Rock Quietly and Hum by Leonard Adame
    • 611 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Journal on My Grandmother Would Rock Quietly and Hum by Leonard Adame

    The poem has amazing imagery setting, which creates the vivid nostalgic atmosphere. Adame begins his story with the image of his grandma rocking quietly in her armchair, maybe for hours, for he stated until her swelled hands/calmed. This is a common scene of elderliness, when people enjoy the calm and slow movement of time, silently rocking on the armchair watching the day passing by. She appears to be a typical grandma, who would feel cold in a hot summer day to wear thick socks and big sweaters. In the writers memory his grandma was really old and weak. She is also a person who would be glad to save any penny, as she laughs greedily going to Payless to buy cheap shoes. Even knowing Payless always sells cheap products, she would still wait until the check comes. This could be an embarrassing memory for a kid to be with his grandma, who goes excessively happy to save a few cents. However Adames flashback is immediately followed by the recall of his grandmothers warm and kind hearted actions. Every morning, when it is still early at dawn sunlight barely lit/the kitchen, his grandma would wake up before everybody else in the family, and prepare breakfast. The sound and smell of potatoes in frying saucepan would always wake him up, as a warm nurturous feeling to start the day. And although she makes nice hot meal for her children, she herself cannot enjoy it. She has lost her teeth, and can only eat bread soaked in coffee. As a kid perhaps he did not understand the feeling of that daily routine, but as he grows up and looks back to the past, it has a heartbreaking emotion. Adame realizes how hard it was for his grandmother. He also remembers how loving and caring she was to him.…

    • 611 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Century Quilt Analysis
    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Century Quilt Analysis

    Family, for some has always been the glue that holds people together, whether liked or not, like branches on a tree, spreading its leaves for what seems like miles. In "The Century Quilt" by Marilyn Nelson Waniek, the speaker creates a simile of her grandmother's blanket and her quilt, beginning with explaining the memorable colors and thoughts about her grandmother's blanket and continuing with her quilt. In "The Century Quilt", Waniek gives the poem complex meaning through literary techniques such as diction to add complexity and to give insight to the meaning, imagery to show the connection of the speaker's family, and symbolism to show the similarities of the speakers quilt and her grandmother's blanket.…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    My Mother Pieced Quilts By Teresa Palomo Acosta
    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    My Mother Pieced Quilts By Teresa Palomo Acosta

    It is important for children to make their own decisions on how they look at the world. But it is up to the parent to influence their child on how the outlook is. Children get most of their perception of culture from their parents. Three ideas that play a major role on a child’s perspective on culture are: social interactions between parent and child, the passing down of heirlooms, and emotional connections. These concepts are seen in the poems Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde and My Mother Pieced Quilts by Teresa Palomo Acosta.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Circular saws response
    • 404 Words
    • 1 Page

    Circular saws response

    more figurative meaning. The third stanza presents what the poem really is about. The poem…

    • 404 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    At Mornington & the Violets
    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages

    At Mornington & the Violets

    Gwen Harwood’s poetry utilises a variety of textual forms to explore the complex relationship between memory and the passing of time. Her works address the concept of memory as a means of defying the years’ inexorable march forward, and thus make great use of time shifts and vivid imagery in painting an evocative portrait of time’s passage and its impact upon the individual. Both “At Mornington” and “The Violets” explore the connection between past and present as well as Harwood’s quest for a form of self fulfilment and inner peace as an ideal spiritual state informed by past physical experiences.…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Violets Gwen Harwood Analysis
    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Violets Gwen Harwood Analysis

    Literally, the persona of the poem is outside when some aspects of the nature around her, like violets and a blackbird, trigger a memory from her childhood. The poem then flashbacks to a childhood memory of the persona as a young girl, which is shown through the indentation of the stanzas, where the girl wakes up in the afternoon thinking it is morning and becomes upset when she wonders ‘Where’s morning gone?’. This continues until she falls asleep in the memory, and we are brought back to the present. The last stanza sums up some of her most valued childhood memories which continue to ‘drift in the air’ and remain with her.…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Century Quilt Analysis
    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Century Quilt Analysis

    Waniek’s diction creates a nostalgic tone: “I remembered how I’d planned to inherit that blanket” (Lines 9-10) and “my sister and I were in love with Meema’s Indian blanket” (lines 1-2). Her word choices “remembered” and “were in love,” Waniek emphasizes a sentimental memory. Waniek’s diction allows the reader to relive the memory through the speaker’s perspective. The speaker describes how she remembered "play[ing] in its folds and be chieftains and princesses" (11-12). She uses these lines to demonstrate how the quilt represented her youthful and energetic days with her sister.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Isolation In The Anglo Saxon Lover's Poem
    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Isolation In The Anglo Saxon Lover's Poem

    For example the first stanza, lines 1 through 5, tell of her first heartbreak from her husband. the caesura puts expression of sadness,sorrow, and grief. As well, in the fifth line states right out “my exile”.…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ian Crichton Smith
    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ian Crichton Smith

    The poem is divided into three stanzas, the first dealing with Smith 's memories of the past when his mother was alive; whilst the remaining two explore the present. The first stanza, dealing with the past, is twice as long as the remaining two. It may therefore be assumed that Crichton Smith uses the structure to reflect the fact that to him the past seems more substantial or dominant than the present.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Century Quilt Poem Analysis
    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Century Quilt Poem Analysis

    The poem The Century Quilt by Marilyn Nelson Waniek serves as a nostalgic reflection of the history of a cherished quilt, which connects the speaker’s life to her diverse heritage. Wainek’s use of enjambment, personification, and colorful imagery develops a speaker and a character that demonstrates affection for the quilt’s qualities and reveals a more complex underlying message about the quilt’s impact on how the speaker perceives her life and family.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Century Quilt
    • 299 Words
    • 1 Page

    The Century Quilt

    Marilyn Waniek’s “The Century Quilt” employs symbolism to relay a young girl’s emotional attachment of a grandmothers’ blanket to that of her own quilt. Waniek’s depiction of the quilt not only serves as a reminder of how passionate the young girl felt about her grandmother’s blanket, but also how she envisioned her quilt to share similar properties that embodied her grandmother’s blanket. In lieu of the literal concept of using the quilt to keep her warm, the speaker suggests that he quilt will tie-in with her grandmother’s blanket in that the memories of her childhood would be preserved. This relationship allows the reader to interpret the symbolic importance of the quilt to that of the girl’s personal desires. It can also be inferred that the quilt also served as a reference to the speaker’s heritage. When describing her quilt, the speaker describes a pattern of squares with the colors of white, brown, and “the yellowbrown of Mama’s cheeks” (Line 17). These repeating patterns of squares most likely pay homage to the speaker’s mixed heritage, with her family being of both Native American and Caucasian descent. The speaker’s heritage is supported by her visions of her grandmother’s childhood back in Kentucky “among her yellow sisters; their grandfather’s white family” (Lines 25-26). While one could argue that the speaker is simply reciting the life of her grandmother, it can also be said that the speaker is optimistic about her own future, and that she herself would relive her memories whilst under the quilt, such as meeting her unconceived son. The speaker’s desire to share the same emotional response to her quilt as her grandmother to her blanket signifies the priority Waniek placed…

    • 299 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Study
    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Study

    Stanza five is where the poet talks about her mothers death. "The Sister said, when she died she was folding a little towel." In this line, "Sister" could also develop the idea of a chain of femininity that stresses back in time. Also, the act of the mother folding a towel implies the concept of motherhood and duty.…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics