Warming+her+pearls

When I first heard this poem, it appeared to be a maidservant just getting her mistress ready for a night of luxury. She got the clothes ready, warmed the necklace, and idolized her the entire time, dreaming about her after she left. Br. Tom did mention that this was a lesbian poem from the maid's perspective, paying attention to every detail of the mistress, obsessed with the way she looks, moves, and acts. The only thing that bothered me was the last line. "All night I feel their absence and burn." This sentence just didn't feel right to me, after she idolized everything the mistress did. From this sentence, I got somewhat of a Cinderella vs. stepsister vibe. The maidservant had to sit back and watch, while a stunningly beautiful (one of the few differences from the original story) got ready for a night on the town. I felt a little grudge between the two, leaving me with an unsettling attitude towards the poem. It almost reminded me that she was jealous. Anyone share the same feelings?1205450695

My group read this poem in class, and the impression I got was not so much that the "burn" was one of jealousy. Rather, I think that it was one of lust or passion. She feels the absence of the pearls, the link that connects her to her mistress, and she wants to have them back again so she can feel something of her mistress's touching her neck and being on her skin. I don't necessarily think that she's upset that her mistress got to go "out on the town" and she didn't, because otherwise it would focus more on her sitting alone at home, waiting for the other one to come back. Instead, it focuses on the mistress being well-dressed, and then gives a detail of her undressing and getting into bed naked. That is far more erotic than jealous, if you ask me.1205451046

I definately agree that this poem is more erotic than anything else. I was in the partnership to read this poem as well, and the first thing we notice was the title. Something about the title just screams "This poem is insinuating something sexual!!" Is the mistress unaware of this passion from her maid? It seems that this love is a secret kept by the maid, but is it possible to keep something like this a secret when they spend so much time is such close proximity to each other? I don't know if there is anything in the poem to suggest if the mistress either is oblivious, or ignoring it.

Anothing thing I was confused about was the line end of the second stanza. "Slack on my neck, her rope." When we first read this I thought that the maid had a death wish for her mistress--imagining the string of pearls as a noose. Obviously that wouldn't be true if the maid loved her mistress. So what does this line mean? It does not seem like it belongs in a poem like this, it seems to fit more in a morbid poem. 1205451780

I thought of the pearls as an extension of her mistress, rather than a material object that she longed for. The maidservent longed to be with her mistress. But, while I say this, at the same time I know where you are coming from Bzw. I said in class that she might not be lesbian, but my first statement is similar to what Br. Tom said in response to that. I said that she might just be envious of the life her mistress leads, idolizing the life instead of an erotic passion, but Br. Tom said that even though she speaks about the pearls the most, that is simply an indirect way of saying all these things about her mistress. I actually like that better. Instead of saying, "All night I feel her absence and I burn, " she speaks of the pearls. As the reader, we are suppose to make that connection. It is less vivid and also it is a more creative and beautiful way of writing. Carol Ann Duffy uses an analogy to profess the maidservant's love for her mistress. 1205455041

In regards to the "Slack on my neck, her rope", she is talking about the pearl necklace and how that is her true connection to her. She is the maidservant, doing everything for her. Have you seen an ox or a cow with a rope around it's next, kind of like a leash? Sometimes it is tight, but other times it is loose. I think that this line may be referring to the necklace as a leash. Even though the mistress is gone, she still has that hold on the servant. The mistress takes her around everywhere with her and the maid does not mind at all. I was curious about the line "picture her dancing with tall men." Now, I know that she is at a party and is expected to be dancing with men, but wouldn't this make the maid jealous? Consdiering if the maid is truly in love with her mistress, wouldn't she want to be the one that her mistress is dancing with? Or is she just describing what she pictures the mistress to be doing that evening? 1205455437

I don’t see the necklace as being considered a leash. I like the idea about the necklace being a connection between the two but not something mistress uses to keep a hold on the maid with. I actually doubt that the mistress has much of a clue that the maid is obsessed with her. I mean usually mistresses don’t pay a whole lot of attention to servants that much and the mistress is most likely not a lesbian because she spends her nights dancing with tall men and what not. I also don’t think that the maid is truly in love with the mistress. I think it is more of a lustful obsession than true love. In my opinion, the maid wants the mistress all to herself and probably envies the mistress’ position in life. The maid knows that nothing will ever come of her obsession and will never be able to live the life that the mistress does. This probably really angers the maid and thus we begin to see the jealousy and envy start to show. 1205456277

What I want to figure out is why the pearls are gone, because when she says, "All night I feel their absence and burn," it implies that she usually has possession of them and now they are gone. Where did they go? Is her mistress wearing them and away at some lover's house? I think that when she feels the burn of their absense she is feeling the burn of jealousy. If the maidservant usually has the pearls with her or if the maidservant is in contact with them sometime throughout the day, something must be happening to make the maid burn on the inside. Did the mistress dismiss her? Did she find out that her maid had romantic feelings for her? I agree that the maid is not really in love with the mistress, but if the mistress found out that she had even some slight feelings towards her, the mistress may have dismissed her? Why did the pearls disappear? 1205457733

I understood that the pearls disappeared because the mistress was ready to go out, to her real life, to some pretty party that evening--she left for the world that the maid was not a part of. Therefore, the burn that she felt was the pain of knowing that she would never be an important, meaningful part of her mistress' life, as her mistress was to her. The burn of unrequited love, really. And I didn't think that she normally had the pearls or that their absence was unusual--she only wore the pearls so that they wouldn't be cold on her mistress' neck when she first put them on. Therefore, the absence doesn't indicate that the maid was fired, but just that her mistress has left for the night, left for the men that she loves, and the maid is feeling that pain.

I also like the idea of the pearls as a leash, but I would like to add that they are slack because the mistress doesn't know the power that she has over the maid--she really is unknowingly tying her maid to her. 1205458459

My partner and I read this poem aloud in class the other day. We decided to switch off reading from stanza to stanza, but the partner who wasn't reading during one stanza would chime in on phrases such as "her pearls" or "her carriage." We decided to read it like this to emphasize what the mistress posessed. By drawing attention to her physical characteristics as well as other aspects of her life, we thought we were showing why the maid was appearing bitter and jealous. We were almost positive that the maid was upset that the mistress had everything that she had always dreamed of. We saw a deep lust to be the mistress in order to own what she owned and to live the life she lived. I didn't even expect for the poem to turn out to be about the maid being in love with her mistress. It really shows how people can interpret poetry in different ways. I thought the emotional words the maid used and the yearning she expressed had to deal with her wanting to not be a maid, but to be a mistress. But I guess that she was actually in love with her. We weren't the only ones with this opinion though. So I really wonder how many other people thought the maid wanted to be the mistress as well.1205459199

haha i love this poem!! when i read it, I immediately wrote DIRTY in the margin. The poem is, or at least what i think it is, about a lesbian maid who gets a girl ready to go meet her man. It was a little funny. But, it really was kind of about an obsession the maid had with this woman. I mean the last line clearly states that. I am just not sure if this obsession was love or lust...."All night I feel their [the pearls] absence and I burn." 1205462572

I agree, this poem was sexual. And it was clearly sexual not tons of metaphors. But the question of whether the maid was a lesbian or not still lingers, and I can't come to a conclusion. On one hand I think she is because it is a girl speaking about another girl and bringing up physical and sexual factors about the other girl, the mistress. But on the other hand they could have a different kind of female to female relationship that takes a little more to uncover. For example, couldn't she be her sister? The older sister is the mistress, she's the pretty one and the younger sister is basically the maid around the house and is extremely jealous? Or maybe she is a very jealous maid that is not related to her but is not attracted to her in that way either. Unfortunately, the stereotype of poets being homosexual or suicidal really weeds its way through on this poem and makes me want to think that she is a lesbian...and I hate stereotypes. 1205466154

I know how you hate stereotypes ptr. But before you brought this up, I never even thought about the stereotype of poets being homosexual weeding its way into our thoughts about this poem. I personally didn't think about that stereotype when Brother Tom told us that this poem was about a lesbian. I just started looking into the tone more and the author's word choice. The stereotype of poets never came up in our class discussion the other day. I wonder if anyone thought about this and didn't say anything. But I think we know by now that we have to take everything into account when looking at poetry and there is a lot to take into account.1205468224

I think when it said "i feel their absence and it burns" it was implying that the maid was feeling angry because she knew that she could never have the mistress and that her mistress does not notice her. I do not think its really a grudge between the two because i think that the love the maid has for her mistress is one that she keeps to herself so the mistress cannot really know what is going on exactly. I liked this line too because I like my symbolism. The poem is about how she has to wear the pearls and warm them for the mistress, but when they are not with her they are burning. I thought that this line was quite powerful.1205469116