Essays

Fire is as much a tool and a representation of rebirth as it is a force of destruction. Water can represent the same, but also a freedom and a fear of the unknown. After all, who really knows what lurks under dark waters? Nothing in Muriel Rukeyser’s poem sequence “Waterlily Fire,” composed over the span of four years beginning in 1958 and published in 1962, exists in singularity, and the complex relationship she creates between fire and water is testament to that. Rukeyser presents her audience with a piece that opposes male artificiality with female nature, addressing the issue of women’s enforced isolation and fractured identities, the conquering of this oppression, and the breaking of natural and imposed barriers throughout the poem.

In “Waterlily Fire,” Rukeyser describes a fire that was at once more than reality and more than metaphor. Rukeyser bore witness to the aftermath of the fire that ravaged the Museum of Modern Art and one of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies paintings (1914-1926). She was meeting with her friend Richard Griffith, curator of the museum’s film library, whom she calls “Dick” in the sequence’s opening section, “The Burning” (CP 406). Beyond this actual event and biographical fact, Rukeyser describes a metamorphosis. The sequence begins with a description of the fire and of a city that the fire is at once destroying and transforming. Change, after all, often comes with a destruction of what preceded it. Rukeyser homes in on the idea of losing youth and being visited by an awakening, which appears to be a sexual one. Water lilies, a symbol of purity, burnt the day Rukeyser witnessed their remnants, and her poems also burned with youth, naivety, and innocence.

The sequence ends with the line, “I speak to you / You speak to me,” which implies a sort of dialogue intended to be created by the poems (410). This dialogue, created by a woman, aligns with Rukeyser’s idea of muses. In “Many Keys,” a “lost” feminist essay she composed in 1957, which has recently been recovered, edited, and published with an introduction by Eric Keenaghan, Rukeyser characterizes women as muses for men rather than being their own muses. The woman “is a listener who answers, traditionally, as Muse, evoker; who answers, sometimes, as artist, and breaks that barrier” but who when writing poetry “does not turn to a muse” (Rukeyser, “Many Keys” 195). Rukeyser breaks tradition and convention by initiating instead of responding, and she suggests that women, through their being their own muses, gain autonomy and the power to put forth their own narratives. When they are simply the muses of men, their very being is oppressed and the truth of who they are is hidden. Rukeyser’s work gives the audience her own truth, a truth riddled with independence, revolution, and desire. In “Waterlily Fire”—more specifically, in the first two sections of the poem— Rukeyser discusses women as their own oppressors and liberators. She expresses this duality through their presence as both fire and water, their isolation as an island but also their ability to build bridges, and their existence as both pure water lilies as well as humans who experience desire and are objects to desire. These are natural, elemental barriers that women can find as much strength in as they can find weakness. The imposed barriers come in the form of guards, which draw out fear instead of strength.

Because this message is based on layers of duality, it seems that the existence of natural barriers implies that all other barriers can only exist in the sense of being unnatural and must be abolished instead of amended. These unnatural, external barriers exist and are addressed in “Many Keys” because the essay expresses the necessity that women have their own voices. Women must integrate themselves into their writings not only because it is what they know but also because they need to take back narratives that have been controlled by external factors for much too long. By creating their own narratives, they remove themselves from false narratives and create the bridges that are described in “Waterlily Fire.” In the second poem of the sequence, “The Island,” Rukeyser evolves from “I was the island with no bridges” to “I am a city with bridges and tunnels” (406). Rukeyser makes the fracturing of women’s identities apparent by showing how they are fractured within themselves as well as by outside forces that inflict limitations and rules upon them. But through this device, Rukeyser also makes clear that the mending of their identities through the formation of connections with others is a natural thing.

These connections do not imply one shared identity, though. Women may fight together against a shared oppression, but every woman has the individual struggle of accepting and becoming herself. In one stanza, Rukeyser moves from the idea of the acceptance of oneself to a description of “blossoms like sex pink, dense pink, rose, pink, red” (407). Before the poem ends, this image transforms into “Lilies of all my life on fire” (408). Becoming whole means realizing one’s humanity, and humans have desires. If we are to have a discussion of the societal fracturing of women’s identities, it would be an injustice to ignore the over-sexualization of women and the stigmatization of overtly sexual women. The poem mends this fracture by presenting the purity and the sexuality of women as natural, both essential to who a woman is. Once this fact is accepted, as Rukeyser writes, “I walk past the guards into my city of change” (408). Rukeyser walks past imposed internal barriers and external oppressors at once, becoming a woman who is capable of owning her own identity and building bridges.

These guards featured in the last line of “The Island” are the physical manifestations of the unnatural entities in the first two poems. In the sequence’s opening poem, “The Burning,” Rukeyser writes, “I pass guards, finding the center of my fear” (406). The guards, as mentioned above, are then present in the line that ends the second section, “I walk past the guards into my city of change” (408). They stand out in the poem, breaking away from natural things (i.e., fire, water, earth, human desire) and presenting the audience with what is presumably only a few men. These men only pose a threat if the people walking by them fear them. This fear is not a natural, automatic fear, but instead one that is taught. Guards police what a person does, ensuring that consequences are enforced for stepping outside of boundaries. This strictness, this fear, is something that is created and something that is oppressive, and Rukeyser shows a woman breaking the expected pattern of complacency, instead fighting to reinstate the natural as ruling. Another thing to note is how Rukeyser’s presentation of the imposed barrier implies that the guards are men, even though their gender has not been explicitly stated.

If the male imposition of control and barriers is unnatural, then the womanly show of power is elemental. Men, the guards, can create a limited amount of fear when they are given a woman’s permission to do so, but what can a woman create? What can she destroy? The second line of “The Burning” begins, “I go to the stone street turning to fire” (405). In the first line of “The Island,” the narrator claims she was “Born of this river and this rock island” (406). This contrast of fire and water shows the natural strength of women, and it also shows women as contradictory forces of nature who can oppress themselves. Both quotes mention an origin of a stone or rock, thus showing something stable that the strength is rooted in; but one passage shows a beginning of water and the latter shows a turning point of fire. Rock can withstand both fire and water, so women’s core is protected, but their two natures are at constant odds with each other. Fire and water are opposites. A woman’s identity is fractured because she will always be at risk of putting out her own fire. However, there is also a strength that can be found in the ability to nurture opposing forces within oneself. The guards had their own perceived strength, but this woman has the potential for both destruction and liberation. Beyond herself, her water and her fire can be used not only to oppose other women but also to create a collective identity: Fire may put out water, but the fires of two women combined is much stronger than the fire of one alone. It also seems curious that Rukeyser allows women to reclaim fire, as it has been known in history as an oppressive force that afflicts women, be it the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials or the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. The presentation of a fractured woman also opens the avenue to a stronger collective identity.

Stephanie Coontz shows another side of the importance of solidarity between women in “Demystifying the Feminine Mystique,” a chapter of her book A Strange Stirring. She shows Betty Friedan, a woman quite often credited with spurring second wave feminism with her classic book The Feminist Mystique (1963), as a woman who strategically isolated herself from other women, thus fracturing her own beliefs in order to focus purely on the white middle class. This was apparent through her distancing herself from the French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, acknowledging her only through a “brief reference” that “minimized the tremendous debt Friedan and her book owed” to Beauvoir (Coontz 143). This was because Simone de Beauvoir’s political beliefs and her belief in intersectional equality did not align with the objectives of Friedan’s intended audience. Instead of building bridges, Friedan found it necessary to burn them. This example truly emblematizes Rukeyser’s ideas of the isolation and fractured identities that affected women because it shows that Friedan distanced herself from what the audience she was appealing to would find undesirable, hence the isolation. It also shows her breaking away from part of what she based her entire feminist theory on, thus showing a fracturing within herself as well as between other women.

Friedan created a collective identity, but an exclusive one. She had the privilege to be truly selective when building her bridges, as she existed within the realm of majority as a middle-class white woman, and thus brought to life Rukeyser’s idea of a woman as an island. Though this brings to light the isolation Rukeyser spoke of in her poem, it also brings into question the inclusivity of Rukeyser’s metaphors: Who exactly had the power in “Waterlily Fire”? Friedan built bridges, but selectively and strategically, as both a show of strength and weakness. Her strength is found through exclusion and the bridges she did create are as limiting as they are liberating.

Beyond the necessity of the fracturing, Coontz’s observation about Friedan shows how women are pitted against each other. If this state coincides with the need of patriarchal societies, does it mean that this fracturing is unnatural and imposed? Socially imposed identity-based boundaries are meant to create a collective identity, yet they create an intersectionality that actually pits women against each other. Women are islands and they are not taught to build bridges, hence their isolation from each other. This exemplifies the confusion of the natural and the unnatural Rukeyser’s islands reference in her poetic sequence. Women are either islands and isolated, discovering their own strength through making connections and building bridges, or they find their strength through prescribing to what is normal, each finding strength in a man as opposed to the poem’s vision of the elemental strength a woman is able to tap into.

Fighting imposed barriers means creating a collective identity despite the isolation that is often expected of women. Rukeyser, in her essay “Many Keys,” mentions how isolation and fracturing of identities occurs when women are expected to be muses. Coontz, in “Demystifying the Feminine Mystique,” describes a purposeful and strategic fracturing and isolation because Friedan, for her book to be popular, could only show a part of who she was. In Rukeyser’s poem, the physical barriers, apart from the guards, and isolation come from how she presents women as islands. As I noted earlier, one stanza from “Waterlily Fire” suggests the liberation of making connections, but what of the oppression women were liberated from? After Rukeyser finds such liberation, one later line in the section “The Island” asserts, “Whatever can come to a city can come to this city” (“Waterlily Fire” 407). The poem goes on to compare the city to a man, going from “changing like a man changing” to “I love this man” (407). This movement raises questions about the root of the narrator’s freedom and how free she actually is. After all, is the city not her? Is it not her island? Because if her freedom stems from manliness as opposed to a liberation of women, she has not been freed at all. Her identity is not mended, her isolation from her own identity is still more than present.

Rukeyser, within both her poem and her essay, exemplifies the power of autonomy. To have the ability to embrace and express oneself is to have the ability to exist complexly, as both fire and water, as both author and muse, and to overcome the static barriers that stand in the way of improvement. Beyond that, she also emphasizes the importance of connections. By writing, women connect with their audiences and establish credibility with them. By building bridges as Rukeyser does in “Waterlily Fire,” women are not only able to overcome their own isolation but also to guard against those who are able to infringe upon their land. Having only a bridge to connect to others, after all, means you have great power over who is able to enter your island.

Even the title of the sequence “Waterlily Fire” puts emphasis on the paradoxical nature of what can be described as either the weakness or the strength found within a woman and within womanhood. Though describing a literal fire, the title also leads to a presentation of water and fire, two things that naturally oppose each other but in combination represent women in the poem. If a woman is both water and fire, then she has not only the capability to be her own oppressor but also the capability to be both the oppressor and the liberator of other women. This is simply because, within herself, she would only have two opposite forces that work against each other. In conjunction with another woman, fire or water can be made twice as powerful.

All of this combines to create the shared but fractured identity of a woman. She is taught to be the victim but forced to be her own liberator. She is fire, water, island, bridges, isolated, connected. The elemental is not just natural but also tied to human nature. Rukeyser presents women as sexual beings, as beings who crave and find intimacy and connections. They are fire, destructive and full of desire, and water, salvific and fluid. They are complex beings with a depth that is hidden behind external impositions and identities that fracture under the pressure of societal expectations. When stripped to the barest of meaning, these texts by Rukeyser and Coontz point to how women can be anything, and they most certainly can be more than just muses or complacent figures. Sometimes, this requires concessions like the ones that Friedan had to make. Sometimes, it is difficult to break past the imposed barriers and even harder to break past the natural ones and learn to control the fire and water within oneself. Women’s identities are fractured and isolated by society, and it takes a tremendous amount of strength to fight that.

Rukeyser, in “Waterlily Fire,” starts a conversation that prompts a response in the line that she uses to end this sequence: “I speak to you / you speak to me” (410). The conversation that Rukeyser started is still a conversation today. The fracturing and isolation have changed form, as it did when Friedan found a limited amount of strength in them, but that condition is still present and often ignored. The often-toxic dichotomy between the sexes is treated as though it is natural, but Rukeyser shows this conflict in a different light. She shows it as an unnatural, imposed state that can always be beaten out by what is natural, what is elemental, because nature will always overtake the limitations imposed on women by men. The presence of some natural barriers implies that all others are unnatural, and unnaturalness tends to have the connotation of bad. A woman’s identity is often portrayed not only by how she presents herself but also by how other people perceive her. This fact is seen in the media today, as women are often automatically deemed the liar in any situation where they make accusations against men. Ultimately, in her poem “Waterlily Fire,” Rukeyser moves beyond what can be seen in her essay “Many Keys” and in Coontz’s “Demystifying the Feminine Mystique” by creating a world where a woman’s strength can be derived from more than divisiveness and by creating the start of a conversation that is hopeful for more than a metaphorical liberation.

Works Cited

Coontz, Stephanie. “Demystifying the Feminine Mystique.” A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. Basic Books, 2011, pp. 139-65.

Keenaghan, Eric. “There is no glass woman: Muriel Rukeyser’s lost feminist essay, ‘Many Keys.’” Feminist Modernist Studies, vol. 1, nos.1-2, 2018, pp. 186-204, Taylor and Francis Online DOI:10.1080/24692921.2017.1368883.

Rukeyser, Muriel. “Many Keys,” edited by Eric Keenaghan. Feminist Modernist Studies, vol. 1, nos. 1-2, 2018, pp. 186-204, Taylor and Francis Online, doi:10.1080/24692921.2017.1368883.

Rukeyser, Muriel. “Waterlily Fire.” The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. Edited by Janet E. Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog with Jan Heller Levi. U of Pittsburgh P, 2005, pp. 405-10.

“Most demonstrators and marchers did not worry over fine points of strategy; they were simply ‘against the war’” (Bricks and Phelps 141). This sentiment of undirected defiance resonated with the radicalism that emerged in the 1960s protests of the Vietnam War. Even more pertinent, the same sentiments reverberate today. When I was first writing this essay, in the fall of 2019, there had been several protests in Hong Kong throughout the entire year. The citizens of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR) were fighting for their democracy, which had been infringed upon by the Chinese government. These protests, while growing in number, appeared to be unsuccessful and had become dangerous for university students. The students had been confined to their institutions for learning—places designated for free thought — and were subjected to tear gas bombings because of their opposition. But political demonstrations proliferated not only in Hong Kong at that time.

In fact, there were several civil rights protests in the United States that had been reimagined as if it were the 1960s. There were protests resisting the reemergence of anti-abortion attitudes coupled with near-total-bans on abortion legislations in the South and Midwest in hopes of revoking Roe v. Wade. There was an outcry by the Black and Hispanic communities to end police brutality and end the inhumane conditions of ICE detention centers at the US-Mexico border. While protesting became typical in 2019, the standard became embedded into U. S.’s norm in the summer of 2020 with over a two-month period of Black Lives Matter Movement protesting police brutality sparking a global demonstration.  Although these examples show that protesting has become a common way for citizens to express their frustrations with the current political regime, the process itself has become stagnant, rarely resulting in change. For example, from 2013 to 2019, three percent of police brutality cases were brought against police officers, and only one percent resulted in convictions (Vox as stated by mapping police violence).¹ Despite discussions and demonstrations on civil rights injustices by impactful leaders and movements such as Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s, almost sixty years later, civil rights and bodily autonomy is still up for debate in Congress.² In this tumultuous era of global civil wars and mass protests, should we consider an alternate means of activism?

The answer does not reside in a neat box; however Muriel Rukeyser’s poem “Breaking Open” begins to unearth what it means to be an activist. We often try to condense our solution in the hopes of solving all facets of the problem, but the complexity that is found in many aspects of the issue does not allow for a simplified resolution. When the literary critic, Barry Wallenstein, refers to reading Muriel Rukeyser’s poems as “a way into conditions not reducible to the formulas of political arguments,” he is indicating that poetry does more than address a current political crisis. It is also creates a connection the audience feels when experiencing the author’s sentiments through his or her text (52).³    Rukeyser refers to this connection as “coming[s]-together,” which later becomes a motif in her poetry (“Poetry” 18).

The simply stated “coming-together” is hard to achieve in terms of political activism, though. Our failure stems from the lack of creative solutions and the narrow perspective that only validates our own opinion.⁴ In his article “Muriel Rukeyser and the Politics of Poetry,” Wallenstein argues that readers confuse poetry with the “social genesis,” or the socio-political problem that motivates an author to write, instead of thinking of the texts as standing alone devoid of current implications. He asserts the need for “objective intelligence,” for an unbiased perspective that allows for the sentiments of the text to hold and shake the reader’s convictions when analyzing poetry. Although protests and activism are not explicitly related to poetry, they are still comparable in the rigidity in keeping one’s own biases. Wallenstein insists that if a reader “watches for expressions that verify his own ideas, he is sidetracked to anticipate confirmation of [the] idea,” ignoring the poem itself and projecting their judgment on to the text. This approach to poetry does not enlarge the reader’s perspective, but narrows the application of the work, inhibiting change. Like poetry, traditional activism—defined by mass protesting—has led us into a confirmation bias. We believe we are making a difference without evidence of such preventing us from reflecting on new approaches that not only shake our own preconceived notions, but the perspective of the opposing party as well. Therefore, a creative solution is needed to transcend this problem.

Wallenstein’s idea of objective intelligence, which allows the relationship between the audience and the poem to prosper, is mirrored in Muriel Rukeyser’s belief in togetherness. Rukeyser posits that poetry is as natural and innate to humans as speech is to communication, an undertaking which she characterizes as a human activity. Her first Clark Lecture, “Poetry and the Unverifiable Fact” (1968), presents such human experience with a unique perspective. She compares the human experience to the repetition found in poetry. She claims the recurrences in our existence are “the parable that poetry actually is in our lives,” demonstrating how reiterations in poetry can assist us as we try to better understand ourselves (2). Rukeyser states that “the movement, the curve of emotion in a poem, is something deeply human,” thus relating the emotions induced by poetry as a part of the human experience (5). She acknowledges that the “curve of emotion” inspires a profound interrelatedness between those who have experienced the poem. The uniting force of the poem propagates the human experience, it is how we “come-together.” If we are able to replicate such an experience provided by reading a poem, then our everyday interactions will amount to a newly found form of activism.

To manifest this experience, we need to be vessels permitting the past access to the present through our interactions. Yet this is not an easy feat to complete.⁵ There is a sense of hopelessness that is situated in activism, which, at times, can overwhelm our senses. The emergence of angry activism suggests a passionate absorption of our ideals and our reluctance to change them. It results in a violent execution of our cause more than the goal of using our activism for what Wallenstein calls “social genesis.” The frustrations and hopelessness found in angry activism parallels Rukeyser’s idea of the “powerlessness of poetry” (“Poetry” 10). She defines the “powerlessness of poetry” as a constant; it is steady and unchanging. Similarly, the feelings experienced in angry activism produce stagnation. There is energy, but it lacks focus. Nevertheless, the curve of emotion is intrinsic, and becomes a linear relationship within the human experience.

Rukeyser uses the analogy of an infant crying to explain the complications that arise with the “powerlessness of poetry” and essentially our helplessness in times of crisis. In comparing ourselves to babies, we can begin to comprehend how our activism is powerless only when it lacks communication. Our all-encompassing emotions limit our expression of distress. Although a baby is weak, it is able to survive due to the power it has to evoke action in others (11). Rukeyser’s argument proposes that there is potential strength in such hopelessness. In using our ability to elicit passionate responses from others, we can transform traditional protest into activism that ensures change.

In the late 1960s, when Muriel Rukeyser was writing the poems in her book Breaking Open (1973), America’s political Left tried to revise its outlook on activism by encouraging inclusion and creating a diverse environment for change. In Radicals in America, Howard Brick and Christopher Phelps note how the Vietnam War (1955-1975) became a catalyst for transforming the New Left, thus spurring many radicalized movements, including women’s liberation, Black nationalism, and gay liberation (122). Rukeyser, who always considered herself a radical, a leftist, and an activist, was inspired by the diversification of the New Left while writing the title poem of her volume. “Breaking Open” speaks to the confusion and violence during the Vietnam War and the hopelessness of the continued disregard of the situation by the American people. In her poem, Rukeyser asserts that “the personal ‘unconscious’ is the personal history,” thus suggesting our thoughts and experiences in the past hold information that can be used to combat issues in the present (522). If we believe each person is a part of the history that we bring to the present with us, then the consciousness we share through the connectedness of history can allow for a new form of activism that transcends helplessness.

Before we can proceed to activism, what Wallenstein calls “social genesis” needs to be recognized. The beginning of “Breaking Open” establishes Rukeyser’s incentive for writing: the feeling of despair and helplessness generated by the Vietnam War, as well as a lack of empathy in the world that encourages disconnection. She recalls herself:

Walking in the elevator at Westbeth

Yelling in the empty stainless-steel

Room like the room of this tormented year.

Like the year

The metal nor absorbs nor reflects

My yelling.

My pulled face looks at me

From the steel walls. (“Breaking Open” 522)

Rukeyser’s helplessness is pervasive in this excerpt. The staccato-like rhythm of each line provides a languid reading that conveys her powerlessness as she walks into the elevator. There is no sense of urgency or purpose. Yet the frustrated yelling that comes soon after displaces the reader. The shift to an ecstatic state is disarming for her audience because Rukeyser physically expresses her vulnerability, which has only been implied thus far in the text. She juxtaposes the “empty stainless-steel” elevator to that of the “tormented year” to denote the lack of support for the Vietnam War and the impersonal responses of the U.S citizens to it. Nevertheless, the yelling is cathartic. The repetition of yelling in her poem offers a human experience, which enables Rukeyser to work out her thoughts and find her voice; she states, “my yelling.”  It is a moment of vulnerability, but it also evokes agency demonstrated by her “pulled face” looking back at her in the elevator. The reflection of her “pulled face” signifies determination and action, which are shown more fully in the following stanza about her trip to Washington, D.C.

Readers are on an emotional journey with Rukeyser in the elevator. The “curve of emotion,” as she calls it in “Poetry and the Unverifiable Fact,” is strong, creating a bond between the author and her audience. This bond permits a dialogue whereby the reader is included in Rukeyser’s narration:

Naked among the silence of my own time

and Zig Zag Zag that last letter

            of a secret or forgotten alphabet

shaped like our own last letter but it means

Something in our experience you do not know. (“Breaking Open” 521)

In the passage above, Rukeyser is being open about the helplessness that she feels and about the disregard Americans have for the suffering of the Vietnamese people. Rukeyser indicates that she is “naked among the silence,” suggesting her vulnerable side caused by the injustices displayed all over the world. Being bare is one of the most fragile human experiences, and Rukeyser candidly compares her emotions and her frail state of mind to “naked[ness].” She further conveys her weakness at that moment by stating that she is uncovered “among the silence,” which is indicative of the transparency of her fragility in the inaction of the world. The American people are “silent,” and Rukeyser considers their (and her) passivity a form of culpability.

            By comparing the Vietnamese alphabet to that of English letters, Rukeyser establishes a connection between the two cultures to encourage empathy on the part of Americans. The “Zig Zag Zag that last letter of a secret or forgotten alphabet” simulates the action of writing the letter “Z” in the English alphabet. The Vietnamese alphabet is similar to that of the English alphabet, a fact Rukeyser uses to show Americans their commonality with the Vietnamese and thus provoke interest in the cause of peace. This move begins the stages of empathy. However, the “last letter,” “Z,” is a “secret” because it is one of the four letters in the English alphabet not found in the Vietnamese alphabet.⁶ The “forgotten alphabet” denotes our stoppage, the termination of the recurrences that enable us to have a shared experience with each other.⁷  Rukeyser condemns Americans for the disruption in our connected consciousness with Vietnamese people through her statement, “Something in our experience you do not know.” In using the pronoun “you,” the statement becomes pointed and accusatory of the reader, but it also evokes action from them. 

Similar to the vulnerability of an infant’s cry, Rukeyser is able to use her fragility to evoke action within her community. This creates a sense of positivism, which she shares with those around her:

Looking out at the river

the city-flow seen as river

the flow seen as a flow of possibility

and I too to that sea. (“Breaking Open” 521)

Common to much of Rukeyser’s poetry, the motif of rivers arises to represent the fluidity in human interactions. Here, Rukeyser juxtaposes the natural exuberance of a river to the mechanical dynamics of city life when she states, “Looking out at the river / the city-flow seen as river.” In comparing these unlikely features of life, Rukeyser is bringing awareness to how the human experience mirrors nature, no matter how far removed we might be. It suggests that human life is governed by a sense of connection and implores the United States to adhere to this union. This belief motivates Rukeyser’s optimism, and now she is able to act against the Vietnam War. The lines “the flow seen as a flow of possibility / and I too to that sea” express her belief in shared human experiences. It gives her confidence that the American people will do what is necessary to address the injustices that surround them. 

For Rukeyser, the idea of the “unverifiable fact” is essential for her activism; it is the process that creates a shared experience. She defines it as the act of coming into the present, “to the moment in our own experience, unknown to each other, partly known” (“Poetry” 4). Rukeyser comprehends the knowledge each individual has obtained from the past. She understands how that information is carried with us to the current moment: It is presented through our interactions, thus transferring from one person to the next. In this transference is “the signs of the recognition in recurrence … in what is recognizable across the world, across race and life story, and the nature of beliefs” (4). This process of the unverifiable fact is in essence similar to “the cloud” in modern-day parlance, a shared experience of humans stored in the “same state of being” (5).

One subsection of Rukeyser’s poem begins “Written on the plane,” recorded in a note-like fashion (“Breaking Open” 522). This section narrates her thoughts about shared consciousness:

The conviction that what is meant by the unconscious is the same as what is meant by

history. The collective unconscious is the living history brought to the present in

consciousness, waking or sleeping. The personal “unconscious” is the personal history.

This is an identity. (“Breaking Open” 522)

History is not as grounded in facts for Muriel Rukeyser as many assume it is; instead, it is created from the collective subjectivity of each individual’s experience. In the first line, Rukeyser equates the “unconscious” with “what is meant by history,” a radical point of view that suggests the continuation of history and its effects as current. Rukeyser suggests there is no upper or lower bounds to history by comparing the past to a person’s unconscious. This rejects traditional thinking about history as a definite point that ends before the present begins. Hints of the unverifiable fact echo through her statement that the “collective unconscious is the living history brought to the present in consciousness.” This statement creates a new definition for history grounded in the collective “personal history,” thus suggesting an exchange can be made in the present to help build a better foundation for our future. 

One of Rukeyser’s many characteristics is her fondness of combining innovative thoughts with her activist work. Previously in her life, with the long poem The Book of the Dead (1938), she had used the form of documentary poetry to raise awareness about the many workers who contracted and died from silicosis. “Breaking Open” is no different, since it also uses thoughts on philosophy to reimagine the way we see activism. By approaching activism as a way of forming a shared consciousness, there is an individual responsibility placed on the readers of her poem. It does not suggest grand gestures, yet it still maintains the same urgency as a poem that serves as a direct call to action would. Wallenstein’s argument about the creation of the relationship between the poem and the audience’s open mind while experiencing a text lays the foundation for my understanding of Rukeyser’s unverifiable fact. For the transference to commence in the unverifiable fact there needs to be receptivity, a “naked[ness]” of all individuals. The opening scene of “Breaking Open” demonstrates that a lack of receptivity results in the continuing suffering of others. We cannot be passive in our activism, nor do we need to be angry. Rukeyser hopes for a balance between the two, where we as individuals can practice openness and vulnerability while fostering our own agency.

Works Cited

Brick, Howard and Christopher Phelps. “The Revolution Will Be Live, 1965-1973.” Radicals inAmerica: The U.S Left Since the Second World War. Cambridge UP, 2015, pp. 121-72.

Bult, Laura. “A Timeline of 1,944 Black Americans Killed by Police.” Vox, Vox, 30 June 2020, www.vox.com/2020/6/30/21306843/black-police-killings.

Nash, Elizabeth, et al. “State Policy Trends at Mid-Year 2019: States Race to Ban or Protect Abortion.” Guttmacher Institute, 11 Nov. 2019, www.guttmacher.org/article/2019/07/state-policy-trends-mid-year-2019-states-race-ban-or-protect-abortion.

Truong, Donny. “Vietnamese Typography.” Alphabet Vietnamese Typography, 2018,vietnamesetypography.com/alphabet/.

Rukeyser, Muriel. “Breaking Open.” The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. Edited by Janet E. Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog with Jan Heller Levi. U of Pittsburgh P, 2005, pp. 521-29.             

—. “Poetry and the Unverifiable Fact.” The Clark Lectures. Scripps College, 1968, pp. 1-21.

Wallenstein, Barry. “Muriel Rukeyser and the Politics of Poetry.” Margins, nos. 24-26, 1975, pp. 52+. Independent Voices.

CHARACTERS

MURIEL: Muriel Rukeyser. An activist and poet, Jewish. Begins the play in her mid-thirties.

FRIEND 1: A friend of Muriel’s, any gender, Jewish.

FRIEND 2: Same as Friend 1.

FRIEND 3: An activist friend of Muriel’s, Black, any gender.

NEWSCASTER: A radio host, male.

PRIME MINISTER: A future nondescript Prime Minister of Israel, male.

SCENE 1

A New York City apartment, May 14, 1948.                                                              

Morning. A large clock on the wall shows that the time is just past 9 AM. A group of thirtysomethings is huddled around a radio at the kitchen table. The young adults listen intently as a voice emerges out of the radio.

NEWSCASTER: We are receiving word that just after 4 PM Tel Aviv time, David Ben-Gurion, longtime leader of the Jewish people in Palestine, read a Declaration of Independence for a Jewish nation in Palestine to be named “Eretz Yisrael.” This land of Israel will certainly be welcomed by the many Jews across the world still seeking refuge after the fall of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. We were able to access the radio broadcast of Mister Ben-Gurion reading this said Declaration, which we’ll play for you folks at home now.

            (A shaky voice comes over the radio and begins speaking in Hebrew, reading the Declaration of Independence: “B-Eretz Yisrael kam ha’am ha’yehudit…”)

            (The radio fades to white noise as FRIEND 1 turns the dial down low, but not all the way off.)

FRIEND 1: My, I never did think I would see the day.

FRIEND 2: It’s truly something of a miracle, isn’t it?

FRIEND 1: Yes, something of a miracle. And after all we’ve been through, a well-deserved miracle at that.

MURIEL: Well-deserved, yes. We have fought, of that there is no doubt. But they have fought tremendously more. In a time like this, one cannot help but think of the men and women in the Warsaw ghetto, weaponless against what must have seemed like the whole world, or the men and women moving freely in Russia, fleeing the pogroms. And now they, we, have Palestine. They have planted it, they are taking a fierce oath to never put down their arms.¹

FRIEND 2: And I suspect they’ll never have a chance to.

FRIEND 1: How do you suppose?

FRIEND 2:  I can’t imagine the Arabs are too pleased. From what I’ve heard, they think the land belongs to them, too.

MURIEL: This land can belong to many peoples if they choose to share. What matters most is the safety of a people long forced into hiding, death and discomfort. If someone is not pleased, they should know: since the beginning of time, the Jew has been equipped for fighting.²

            (The stage lights fade, save for a single spotlight on the clock which rapidly ticks forward as MURIEL, FRIEND 1, and FRIEND 2 exit. The clock keeps ticking until it reaches midnight.)

            (The volume of the radio increases slowly until the voice of the NEWSCASTER can be heard.)

NEWCASTER: We are receiving breaking news that in the early hours of the morning, the newly established State of Israel was attacked on all fronts by its neighbors in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and the Emirate of Transjordan. Folks, this is coming just mere hours after this infant nation signed its Declaration of Independence. Not quite the neighborly welcome one might have hoped for, if you ask me. What we’re seeing here could be the beginning of a long, long war.

CURTAIN

SCENE 2

Curtain opens on the same apartment in 1967. The décor has been updated to fit the time period. The radio from the first scene now sits beside a small television. MURIEL and FRIEND 3 are seated around the kitchen table having an afternoon tea. The scene opens on them amid a heated discussion.

FRIEND 3: This war, Muriel. This war is something else. Yes, it lasted only six days. But really it’s been raging for twenty years. And I reckon it’ll keep raging unless people like us do something about it.

MURIEL: Do something? Sure, but what is there to do? We all want peace, of course. That is a given. But how does one find peace when the views on either side are so opposing?

FRIEND 3: This nation, too, suffers from a case of opposing views. But we don’t give up, do we? You were there with me, those thirty-odd years ago. You saw how they treated those boys, how they tore their lives to shreds.³ You saw how our two peoples came together then. Different, sure, in upbringing and skin color and the third. But unified still against the forces that tried to push us down. Don’t you remember?

MURIEL: Yes, I remember. Of course, I remember. But I can’t turn my back now on the nation of my people, and I don’t see why I should have to.

FRIEND 3: The nation of your people; it’s taking people’s lives. It’s instigating terror, it’s stealing people’s homes!

MURIEL: I think freely, my friend. This you know of me, I’m sure. But I must agree with the notice sent out by the Anti-Defamation League just this week warning of the anti-Semitic tones these words are holding.

FRIEND 3: It’s not anti-Semitic. It’s anti-colonialism. It’s anti-settlers and anti-oppression.

MURIEL: My people are fighters, my friend. What you see as colonialist, I see as land we have earned, and the earning was not easy, might I add. We have fought for so long for our freedom and we will continue to fight to maintain it. Such is our existence.

FRIEND 3: My people have to fight, too. You know this. You fought alongside us then, but you fight against me now on this issue.

MURIEL: I don’t see any reason to not stand my ground on this.

            (FRIEND 3 pauses and stares long and hard at MURIEL. The stare is not one of disdain or hatred, but certainly one of concern and hurt. Slowly, but assuredly, and even slightly maliciously, they deliver the next line:)

FRIEND 3:    

Beat out continuance in the choking veins

before emotion betrays us, and we find

staring behind our faces, accomplices of death.

Not to die, but slowly to validate our lives.⁴

MURIEL: (Taken aback, but not necessarily offended; intrigued.) Why recite my own lines to me? I know what I’ve said. You think that I’m ignorant or turning a blind eye. I assure you, my friend, that I am doing neither. I understand the issues you are raising; I see where you are coming from. But I ask you this: would you not do anything, have you not done everything, for the safety of your people?

            (A beat. FRIEND 3 looks sadly upon their companion.)

FRIEND 3: (Poignantly)

How did they wish, grandparents of these wars,

what cataracts of ambition fell across their brains?⁵

(This line hangs in the air, and, for a moment, neither of them speaks or moves. After a moment MURIEL leans back in her chair and smiles. This smile is not condescending, nor is it of happiness. Rather, it comes from a bliss of making peace with the fact that the conversation has no easy conclusion.)

FRIEND 3: (Sighs) I love you, Muriel, and I always will. But someone has changed. Is it you, or is it I?

MURIEL: (still smiling) Neither of us has changed, my friend. (She takes a sip of her tea.)

The world has.

CURTAIN

SCENE 3

An imagined future, sometime in the future, perhaps one hundred years, perhaps a thousand. Setting is the Jewish afterlife, Olam HaBaa (translation: the world to come), which is neither heaven nor hell. Many well-known Jewish figures are present, including PRIME MINISTER. He and MURIEL are in conversation when the scene begins.

MURIEL: So, I am to understand, Mister Prime Minister, that the war really did continue all those years after my passing? I was certain at some point they would cede to us and realize that this nation can fight, and will fight, for eternity.

PRIME MINISTER: No, motek, if anything the violence only got worse during my time leading our people. Wars and bombs coming from every direction, without my push for retaliation, we would never have survived.

MURIEL: So, whatever happened? How did it all end? Was a ceasefire reached or was the land split into two?

PRIME MINISTER: (laughing) No, no, neither of those. No negotiation would ever work for the Arabs. They always wanted more, always wanted to take what was rightfully ours. I would never allow it, I could never allow it. My people looked to me to defend the land we fought for so diligently for so many years.

            (MURIEL nods in listening rather than agreement.)

PRIME MINISTER: No, the only way to keep ourselves safe was to get rid of them, once and for all.

            (A beat. MURIEL looks taken aback)

MURIEL: Get rid of them?

PRIME MINISTER: Of course! They wouldn’t relent and they wouldn’t negotiate. So, I pulled some strings. Called my allies; you know, the US and Russia, all the big players. I made the arrangements, and finally, after years of torment, it was done. We were free at last.

MURIEL: But, what do you mean?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we flattened them. Every last one of them. Every Palestinian town and village, every last man, woman, and child. We wanted to spare some, of course, but at some point, it became too much of a danger to let any stick around. So, we obliterated them.

MURIEL: (in disbelief) I … I don’t understand. Millions of lives, gone in an instant?

PRIME MINISTER: You must understand, Muriel. It was either us or them. Had we not done it to them, they would have done it to us.

MURIEL: All the blood spilled…I cannot comprehend such an atrocity. Generations wiped out, a native people erased from history.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, Muriel. (He smiles coyly.) Whenever you are fighting for that which you believe in, the blood is justified.

            (Exit PRIME MINISTER. The lights dim halfway. MURIEL stands alone in the center of   the stage, facing the audience directly. She muses on these last words, a hopeless sense of knowing creeping up on her. For a moment, she appears as though she may cry, but she holds her chin up strongly to counter it. She falls to her knees, head in her hands. The stage goes black.)

CURTAIN

THE END

Notes for “The Blood Is Justified”

1. This passage is adapted directly from Rukeyser’s essay for the “Under Forty” feature in a 1944 issue of Contemporary Jewish Record.

2. See note 1.

3. The Scottsboro Boys.

4. This is the opening stanza to Rukeyser’s own poem “The Blood is Justified” (68).

5. These lines are excerpted from later in Rukeyser’s poem “The Blood Is Justified” (70).

A critical self-reflection on “The Blood Is Justified”

On May 14, 1948, nearly three years after the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the Jewish death camps, the Israeli Declaration of Independence was signed. This monumental event was seen at the time as a much-needed establishment of safety for Jewish people after the extermination of more than six million European Jews. The establishment of a Jewish state was celebrated by Jews and gentiles alike around the world, but excitement quickly turned to fear and urgency when the infant nation was attacked by its neighboring countries the very next day. So began a tumultuous battle between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians/Arab non-Jews, a battle which continues to rage on today some seventy years later. At the beginning of this conflict, diaspora Jews and liberal activists alike were in agreement that Israel’s existence was integral to protecting the Jewish nation from further harm. This support could be seen particularly within student activist communities at the time who were embroiled in combatting racism and anti-Semitism nationally and globally. Jewish students found the intersection of issues surrounding racism against Black Americans and anti-Semitism to be of particular concern, as the two seemed to be intrinsically linked in the 1930s and 1940s. As Britt Haas writes in her book Fighting Authoritarianism, “[I]n the 1930s, concerns about racism extended not only to African Americans but to Jews as well, and in this more comprehensive view of race relations, youth activists’ internationalist perspective was manifest” (77). The understanding amongst student activists that Jews were a targeted minority both domestically and abroad surely played into the desire and support for a Jewish state in Palestine.

It was several decades before the tide within some liberal communities began to change. In 1967, a vicious six-day war erupted between Israeli armed forces and neighboring Arab states, with many in liberal circles seeing Israel as the instigator of the violence. According to Howard Brick and Christopher Phelps in their book Radicals in America, “As Israel [in 1967] occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, many radicals […] objected to Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian Arabs and described Israel as a ‘settler-colonialist’ state in a U.S.-dominated imperialist world system” (239). However, while some facets of the liberal American movements began to shift their tone regarding Israel’s presence in Palestine, “many American Jews saw Israel’s vulnerability as the war’s main lesson, leading to stronger identification with Israel” (239). Brick and Phelps go on to note that “[m]ainline Jewish groups […] typically labeled American Jews who criticized Israel’s suppression of Palestinian rights as ‘self-hating’ and other critics simply as anti-Semitic” (239). As I previously established, young Jews made up a strong section of activist communities, so this tension between criticism and unwavering support for the Israeli government put many Jewish liberals in an uncomfortable position in which two of their core values were in direct conflict with one another.

As both a Jewish woman and a student at the time that fascism and Nazism had a stronghold in Europe, it is thus inevitable[ED1]  that poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser would find herself in the middle of this above-mentioned dichotomy. Rukeyser, born in 1913, though admittedly more of a cultural Jew than a religious one, was in a unique position to use her writing to address issues of oppression. In her 1944 piece for the Contemporary Jewish Record, immediately after she admiringly mentions “the men and women, planting Palestine and taking a fierce oath never to put down their arms,” she muses:

To me, the value of my Jewish heritage, in life and in writing, is its value as a guarantee. Once one’s responsibility as a Jew is really assumed, one is guaranteed, not only against fascism, but against many kinds of temptation to close the spirit. It is a strong force in oneself against many kinds of hardness which may arrive in the war- the idea that when you throw off insight, you travel light and are equipped for fighting; the ideas that it is impractical to plan and create, and that concrete and invention are the only practical things, apart from killing. (Statement 9)

In this passage, notably written toward the end of the Second World War and only a few years before the establishment of the State of Israel, Rukeyser suggests that being Jewish necessitates an inherent desire to fight back against oppressive forces. She likewise emphasizes the importance not of having an established plan or means to an end, but of taking advantage of the opportunity to establish and build wherever it may present itself. This stance seems to be somewhat at odds with  positions Rukeyser previously took surrounding  the justification of practicing Colonialism  as a means of obtaining land or comfort.

Rukeyser’s anti-colonialist sentiments can be best seen in her poem sequence “The Blood Is Justified,” which was published as a part of her 1935 book of poetry Theory of Flight. This book and sequence of poems directly addresses the case of the Scottsboro Nine, which Rukeyser herself witnessed and reported on as young journalist and by which she was, of course, deeply disturbed. Though this poem is responding to the injustices imposed upon Native Americans at the hands of white colonialist Americans, the parallels between the language she uses in the poem and her Zionist rhetoric in later years is uncanny. From the very first stanza, Rukeyser expresses her deep discomfort with the brutality of treatment that Natives faced. She opens:

Beat out continuance in the choking veins

before emotion betrays us, and we find

staring behind our faces, accomplices of death.

Not to die, but slowly to validate our lives[.] (Collected 68)

In these opening lines, Rukeyser is expressing what must be interpreted as white guilt, noting her anxiety at looking too far inward at her white lineage and finding something sinister, some “accomplices of death.”

By the third stanza, Rukeyser is addressing head-on the issue of stolen and misappropriated artefacts, writing:

Living they move on a canvas of centuries

restored from death in artful poses, found

once more by us, descendants, foraging,

ravelling time back over American ground.

How did they wish, grandparents of these wars,

what cataracts of ambition fell across their brains? (69)

The final two lines of this stanza are especially notable when comparing this poem to more modern anti-Zionist sentiments in that they address the ways in which ancestors’ decisions can haunt the consciences of later generations. She further acknowledges this type of generational trauma towards the end of the poem:

My generation feeds

the wise assault on your anticipation, 

repeating historic sunderings, betraying our fathers,

all parricidal in our destinies. (70)

Her poignant mention of parricide, or the killing of a parent, can be understood as referring both to the killing of generations beforehand by white settlers as well as the shame a parent may feel at their child’s “radical” opinions. The poem overall uses imagery of bloodshed, death, and mutilation that is meant to unsettle its audience in such a way that makes the support of something like Native genocide or oppression nearly impossible. The title itself, “The Blood is Justified,” is Rukeyser’s cheeky way of communicating that no amount of land or wealth or pride is worth the lives of others.       

Rukeyser maintained a complicated relationship with Zionism throughout her lifetime, given that she, at different points in her life, felt different levels of connection with her Jewish identity, all the while retaining a commitment to combatting white supremacy and injustice. Her mother claimed lineage from the first-century Jewish scholar Akiba, and her 1968 poem entitled “Akiba” addresses the events that were unfolding in the disputed territory at the time. The poem details a brief history of the Jews in the Middle East, and Rukeyser compares them to other persecuted minorities throughout history:

Those at flaming Nauvoo,

the ice on the great river: the escaping Negroes,

swamp and wild city: the shivering children of Paris

In interpreting this comparison, it is clear that Rukeyser is aware of the damage done by anti-Native ideologies of generations past, but she is unable to transitively and preemptively apply those same sentiments to issues regarding native Palestinians. Since she passed away in 1980, it’s important to note that a vast majority of American Jews of the time, liberal or not, were still supportive of the actions of the Israeli government. However, in the nearly forty years since her passing, the discourse around Zionism within liberal Jewish diasporic communities has shifted greatly, with a much higher percentage of this group identifying less with Zionist ideals. This shift in understanding when taken in tandem with Rukeyser’s own personal beliefs about oppression begs the question: If she were alive today, would Muriel Rukeyser still be a Zionist?

In my creative project, a play entitled “The Blood Is Justified,” I seek to show Muriel, a fictional interpretation of Rukeyser, grappling with and understanding Zionism at three different stages. A play was the most natural option to tackle this daunting subject not only because it was one of Rukeyser’s media of choice, but also because the format of a staged play allows for movement through time as well as the suspension of disbelief, thus allowing for themes and settings both fictional and fantastical. The first scene shows Muriel as a young woman hearing about the establishment of the State of Israel in real-time. For this moment of triumph for the Jewish people, which took place within Rukeyser’s lifetime, I lift much of her dialogue directly from her own writing. Since the specific passages used were written in 1944, less than five years prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Israel, I find it safe to assume that the sentiments she expressed in her writing would be consistent with what she felt on that day. The arguable hypocrisy of these sentiments is apparent when compared with Rukeyser’s own words regarding the damaging effects of intruding on Native spaces, as seen in the next scene.

The second scene moves nearly twenty years into the future and features Muriel in conversation with a friend of hers from the activist community. It is noted in the character descriptions that this friend is Black, which helps to incorporate Brick and Phelps’ comments regarding the closeness of many young Black and Jewish activists during the Civil Rights Movement. This friend is frustrated that Muriel does not see the indiscretions being committed against Palestinians by Israel, and their argument comes to a head when the friend directly quotes Muriel’s own poem “The Blood Is Justified” to her. I include this section to highlight the inconsistencies of the real Rukeyser’s opinions surrounding this subject matter; her early statements on the brutal treatment of Native Americans directly contradicts her justifications for a Jewish state in Israel/Palestine. In the play, when her friend again uses her own words to gently acknowledge her lack of insight, she can only accept the criticism, but not really respond to it.

Finally, the last scene is set in the afterlife in some future, near or distant, and puts Muriel in eager conversation with a nondescript future Prime Minister of Israel. She is excited to learn what solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine was finally achieved, only to be appalled when it is revealed that total destruction of Palestine was the method eventually used to achieve “peace.” When she asks how such a horrendous act could be committed, the Prime Minister sinisterly replies that “the blood is justified,” leading to a moment of tormented clarity for Muriel.

I feel it is important to note that, with this project, I am in no way suggesting that Rukeyser or any self-identified Zionist is abhorrent, evil, or ignorant. The final scene is inspired by what I believe may unfortunately be the outcome of the conflict in Israel, especially when the nation is led by neo-fascists such as Bibi Netanyahu, upon whom the character of the Prime Minister is based. Rather, my goal in engaging with this project is to shed light on the holes in the arguments of some Zionists, specifically ones within liberal and activist communities. The parallels between the ways Rukeyser describes the tragedy of the genocide of Native peoples in her poem “The Blood Is Justified” and the modern discourse surrounding Zionism and Israel are simply uncanny. In the end, there is, of course, no way to know how Rukeyser would align herself regarding this issue were she alive today, but one can only hope that the sympathies extended to Native Americans would be justly extended to native Palestinians as well.

Works Cited

Brick, Howard and Christopher Phelps. “Over the Rainbow, 1980-1989.” Radicals in America:

The U.S. Left since the Second World War.Cambridge UP, 2016,pp. 238-239.

Haas, Britt. “The Scottsboro Boys: Demands for Equality from the Deep South to New York

City.” Fighting Authoritarianism: American Youth Activism in the 1930s. Fordham UP,

2017, pp. 61-81. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Rukeyser, Muriel. The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. Edited by Janet E. Kaufman and

Anne Herzog with Jan Heller-Levi, U of Pittsburgh P, 2006.

Rukeyser, Muriel. Statement for “Under Forty: A Symposium on American Literature and the

Younger Generation of American Jews.” Contemporary Jewish Record, vol. 7, no. 1

(Feb. 1, 1944), pp. 3-9.

6:00 AM

The alarm clock begins its song and dance promptly as the time strikes six, ringing out and shaking Marie out of her dreams. She rubs her eyes open, forcing herself up and swinging her legs around and over the side of the bed. The sunlight sneaks its way through the translucent curtains, lighting up Marie’s small apartment with its golden dew, preparing the start of a new day.

But first, coffee.

After twenty silent minutes of steady caffeine consumption, Marie shuffles from her chair in the kitchen back to her bedroom. She sheds her comfy clothes, replacing them with athletic leggings and a tank top: A productive morning begins with an active body.

Her sneakers smack against the pavement as she finishes off the last few strides of her daily three-mile run. Her pace slows as she nears the front of her apartment building, averting her gaze as she passes the local squatter who always insists for Marie to stop and chat. She used to oblige, spending her free few minutes after runs to talk with him; that is until the groping incident. Since that day Marie would give a smile and a quick wave, never allowing him the opportunity to strike up a conversation, often pretending she was on the phone or late for work.

7:00 AM

She shuffles up the stairwell, making her way back to the apartment a little after seven. Finally, making progress. She had been keeping up with her morning ritual for a while now, but she is just beginning to see a difference in her speed. She peels off her clothes and slips into the bathroom for a quick shower before getting ready for class.

Aeronautical Engineering certainly isn’t what everyone imagines when deciding which field is best for them, but for Marie there was no question. She grew up captivated by the idea of flight, as was her mother, who shared countless stories, reminiscent of the wild romance she had shared with her late husband, who himself was an extraordinary pilot. Her mother always dreamt of flying herself, as her first love had, but she was never given the same opportunities, her aspirations always remaining outside of her grasp. She often watched and supported him from the sidelines, as he lived out her fantasies. Marie never forgot the sound of sorrow in her mother’s voice when she spoke of this man; it was like he took fragments of her with him. For Marie, flight meant something entirely different. She is interested in flight as a manifestation of freedom and expression, as her mother was, but the mere creation of flight is what fascinates Marie even more. The fact that she could create something that could soar so freely above through her own hard work and effort, that she could make miracles out of blood, sweat, and metal. It had always been her dream and her mother supports her, pushing Marie to pursue the freedom of flight she herself was never able to fully attain.

After several minutes, Marie made her way out of her room, ready for the day ahead of her. She’s dressed casually, perfect for her shift at the bar later, but still neat enough for her day of classes. Not that anyone’s keeping tabs. She grabs her bag and phone off the counter before locking the door of the apartment and heading out to class.

8:00 AM

She walks down the street at a steady pace, only a couple blocks away from the university. She hears the vicious chants before she can even see the sign reading Planned Parenthood in big letters. Protesters line the sidewalks, waving signs proclaiming their love for Christ while they shout slurs of hatred at the women whom the yellow-coated volunteers escort into the abortion facility. Marie walks by, scanning the crowd of people until she makes eye contact with a young girl, no older than sixteen. The girl clings to a volunteer’s arm, breaking her gaze with Marie, and walks swiftly with her head down, attempting to block out the cacophony of accusatory screams and signs pictured with gruesome depictions of small dismantled corpses. Marie moves along past the building, worried that if she delays much longer, she will be late.

She enters the classroom within a few minutes and takes a seat a few rows from the front of the room. A few minutes later, when the rest of the students have filled in, class begins. Pushing through the strain of the three-hour lecture, Marie sharpens her attention, filing away her professor’s words for when she can put them to good use. As the professor reaches out to the class with questions, she is alert and responsive. With each passing day, she prepares herself for the career of her dreams, safeguarding the freedom of expression that her mother was never able to consistently capture.

The class eventually comes to an end and the students funnel out of the lecture center. Marie packs her items and walks to the front of the class, introducing herself to the professor before accompanying him to his office, to inquire about the lecture and a past assessment. He searches the computer for her grade among the other scores, eventually tensing his brows in confusion.

Marie offers: “If it isn’t coming up it may be under my full name: Anne Marie.” He locates her test and after their brief discussion, they exchange a smile and part ways.

11:00 AM

Grumbles ripple against the walls of her stomach as she makes her way down the street to the café. As soon as she opens the door, a wave of warm, cinnamon-scented air tingles Marie’s taste buds. She pays for a large cappuccino and a muffin, then waits patiently at a small round table for her order. As she waits, a middle-aged couple’s muffled chatter from a few tables over catches her attention; specifically, the way the husband orders and ridicules the wife and the look of longing that appears on her face after he dismisses her. It’s the subtle, everyday things like this that used to take a toll on Marie’s mother.

Marie thinks back, reflecting on the men of her mother’s past who had dismissed her in the same way she had just witnessed. Her mother recalled stories of her ex-husband, Laramie; it turns out that even this man, whom her mother loved so dearly, had too many ambitions to remember that she had her own. A couple years after Laramie’s death, Marie was conceived to an ecstatic mother and an abusive drunk of a father. She hadn’t seen him since she was a child, so the memories remained fuzzy, the stories she had been told filling in the gaps of her father’s image. Although they had some fond memories, Marie’s mother doesn’t bring up her father often. When she reflects on her past romances, the first name to leave her mouth is always Laramie. Her mother used to tell Marie stories of her father as a kind man, but she would always add that people can change when they get lost in the river of life, as Marie’s father had over the years and with the help of a hefty bottle of gin. It wasn’t long after the beatings started that he left, fleeing from his battered wife and his young daughter. It was only when Marie, around age thirteen, overheard her mother deep in conversation with her Aunt Helen and found out not only that her father had raped her mother but that when she had finally gained the courage to tell someone, she was branded a liar and told that a husband cannot rape a wife.

The rattling of the coffee cup on the saucer snaps Marie out of her thoughts, just as the shaky waiter places her muffin and steaming beverage beside her. When she looks up from her cup, she notices that the couple had left. Pulling herself together, she sips her cappuccino and picks apart her muffin, while she mentally prepares herself for the long afternoon that awaits.

12:00 PM

As she walks up the stone steps of the Advisement Building, she contemplates “her plans for the future,” knowing it’ll be the first question she is asked. She checks in, taking a seat in the waiting room until a voice calls: “Anne Marie.” She rises to greet her advisor with a friendly smile and a firm handshake, then follows her back to her office where they sit amongst the strong aroma of essential oils.

As she earlier predicted: “So, Anne Marie, tell me, do you know what you want to do after graduation?”

“Please, just Marie is fine. I want to pursue graduate school, so I can continue my study of planes.”

The advisor smiles, intrigued by Marie’s unique interest: “Is that so? I’ll take it that you’ve been enjoying your studies so far then. And let’s see here your major is…oh yes, here it is. Aeronautical Engineering. Any reason behind all of the interest?”

Marie smiles softly: “There are so many reasons why, but I would say that my mother was a huge influence on me. She was always so interested in flight herself, and she was never able to pilot a plane like she had always dreamed. For me, my dream isn’t to literally fly a plane but to be one of the people a part of the process, creating new planes and technology, participating in the making of history.”

By the time she finishes talking, Marie’s smile is stretched wide across her face, her eyes bright with anticipation.

The guidance counselor transitions the conversation to a discussion of Marie’s schedule for the upcoming semester. After several minutes of planning and polite discussion, their meeting ends. Marie gives a grateful goodbye to the advisor, leaving the building with her head in the clouds, daydreaming about the future that is yet to come and her place in it.

1:00 PM

Marie approaches the back of the brown building, arriving at her first shift. She climbs the stairs and opens the door as the smell of donuts immediately rushes to greet her, along with the bakers cooking away in the back of the coffee shop. She makes her way to the front of the shop where her coworkers are busy filling coffees and taking orders, the early afternoon rush rages on. Marie jumps right in with the others, filling and heating up orders while keeping her energy levels up and her smile on.

The crowd lingers for what seems like an eternity when at last the final customer orders, leaving no more than two minutes later with a grin plastered across his caffeine-crazed face. At last there is a moment to breathe, but only for a moment, as the manager reminds everyone that they need to restock the food and brew some more coffee before the next crowd arrives.

Following her manager’s instructions, Marie makes her way to the back corner of the shop, locating the freezer room. She enters the freezer, goosebumps crawl across her skin. She shakes them off in search of the frozen eggs needed for the breakfast bagels. After a few minutes, she digs out the giant box from under a stack of milk cartons, just as the freezer door creaks with the entrance of a figure. Taken off guard by the dim light of the freezer, she steps back, tripping over the scattered boxes that surround her. A male grunt resounds as she recognizes one of her coworkers hovering over her. His hand grasps her waist, attempting to pull her close when Marie resists, slamming her bony fist into the bottom of his jaw.

She staggers over to the door, trying to catch her breath as she hisses: “Who the hell do you think you are!? Come near me again, and I’m calling the fucking cops.”

She walks cautiously to the front of the store where her peers instantaneously ask about the commotion.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, waving away their concern. “He broke something, but I handled it.”

She locates her fellow co-worker, a dramatic pout pasted on his face and a red patch spreading across his neck and jaw. She could not help but feel a bit of joy, noticing his hands trembling just as hers had been a few moments before.

7:00 PM

By the time her shift is finally over, the smell of donuts that was so sweet and welcoming to Marie at the beginning of her shift now smelled like the stale epitome of a shitty minimum wage job. Before she leaves, she gathers up her tips, exchanging the change for bills and then waving goodbye to the remaining workers at the store.

Exhausted and unmotivated to cook for herself, Marie leaves for a proper meal before her next shift. She walks into a nearby restaurant, collapses in one of the chairs that her waiter leads her to and spends the next hour fueling up for her upcoming shift.

8:00 PM

As Marie approaches the front of the bar, she digs through her bag searching for her stashed pair of pumps. She walks through the front door, grasping the black heel with one hand and waving cheerfully with the other to the group of regulars. She heads straight to the bathroom to freshen up and slip on her heels.

Her pumps click-clack along with the beat of her walk as she struts over to the bar, singing a happy hello to her coworkers. Groups begin to pile in as Marie begins taking and mixing orders, attempting her friendliest smile. She had not made a lot of tips at the coffee shop today; the freezer incident had hardened her usual “customer service face.” She presses on, forces a smile, prepares several drinks at a time, passes them along the bar, and offers friendly remarks as she goes. Occasionally, a drunken man or two will hit on Marie; as infuriating as the catcalls and ballsy jokes can be, the tips make the grotesque behavior more bearable. As long as the money is coming in, Marie has a route to attain her dream of creating planes and remaining independent.

She had listened to her mother talk about her dependence on the men in her life, and because of those stories she decided she would never rely on someone else to provide for her or to choose her life for her, a subordinate.

The night swirls by as a continuous swarm of social drinkers attach themselves to the bar. It hasn’t even begun to settle down by the time Marie packs up for the end of her shift, shuffling through a pile of bills, counting the new tip total. She makes her way out of the bar and down the street, at last making her way towards the apartment.

1:00 AM

The door of her apartment flings open as Marie hurls her limp body into the room, tossing her bag and shoes across the floor. She walks in a swayed line to the bed as she strips off each article of clothing. She collapses into her bed’s warm embrace, a sudden sigh of relief flushing over her. She has surpassed another day.

Another day in the life of a persevering woman.

Critical self-reflection: Living in history, a reflection on Rukeyser’s The Middle of the Air

Muriel Rukeyser’s unpublished play The Middle of the Air (1944-1945) provides a new perspective on feminist developments in the mid-twentieth century through its characterization of the protagonist Anne, specifically through her developing private relationship with her husband Laramie and her public relationships with sexual desire and her future aspirations. Rukeyser’s conception of feminism differs from today’s standards, shown through a change in women’s responses to instances of patriarchal domination and subordination. Because today women receive support from new laws and social support, they feel free to respond openly and firmly in instances of subordination or harassment, unlike in Rukeyser’s time when such experiences had to be dealt with strategically due to lack of societal support or understanding. This distinction is key for grasping how far women have come through the normalization of many feminist concepts, as well as for highlighting the injustices present during the time when Rukeyser wrote her text. In my short story “Another Day in the Life of a Persevering Woman,” Marie pulls the life of Rukeyser’s protagonist Anne into a new generation that is still subject to patriarchal domination at the expense of their own control and sexual autonomy. It is important to identify similar issues facing women fighting injustices in previous generations and today in order to stress how immersed our society still is in sexist ideals, such as the domination and suppression of women.

Connecting the issues of the past with the present is key to recognizing what change has been made and what other changes still need to be made. Historian Stephanie Coontz critiques Betty Friedan’s classic book The Feminist Mystique (1963) for describing women’s suffering through the narrow view of a middle-class, stay-at-home wife. Coontz points out that the book simply spreads awareness about the customary difficulties that middle-class housewives face, rather than provide solutions, suggest change, or acknowledge women of color or those of a lower-class status who experience a multitude of unacknowledged injustices. “She did not advocate that women organize to oppose the multitude of laws and practices that relegated women to second-class citizenship, restricted their access to many jobs, and gave husbands the final say over family decisions and finances” (Coontz 149). While Friedan identified issues such as women’s need for an education in order to further personal development, she did not focus on many of the basic injustices that women face on a regular basis; she also did not specify a way to provoke change besides the furthering of education; but this does not go far enough in order introduce equality into a patriarchal society. This is a key criticism by Coontz, highlighting the importance not only of understanding injustices to women but also of providing unifying solutions and acknowledging all sorts of injustices, rather than merely a middle-class white woman’s unfulfillment. In order to fully engage with Rukeyser’s work in a way that inspires change and forces self-reflection, I wrote a short story based on her play that aims to expand the reach of Rukeyser’s concepts of feminism through a sample of women’s 21^st-century struggles and accomplishments. I provide a newly developed characterization through Marie, who I present as Anne’s daughter and Anne’s feminist legacy as viewed through today’s norms.

Throughout The Middle of the Air, Rukeyser hints at several instances of normalized sexism, such as in the workplace shown through Laramie’s conversation with the woman who designed plane blueprints. After asking if the woman who created the blueprints could read them, he mentions his mentor King’s rule against women working for him (53-4). This added detail about Laramie’s assumption that this woman couldn’t understand the prints, let alone work for his mentor, shows the lack of social and professional support for women at the time. This idea is further shown through the depiction of Anne as a subordinate to Laramie, such as when he steals her poem and tweaks it for his own use. She rebutts, “That’s not to be. Not to be touched. And not to be used. You can’t do that.” He dismisses her, “It’s done. But never mind. You’d never recognize it anyway, except the title” (Rukeyser 87). His pure dismissal of Anne’s beliefs and her right to her own poetry shows the social stance of the time. Women had very little of their own, as their lives were controlled by men and they were viewed as property or sexual objects. This scene also shows that although Anne tries to rebel against Laramie, she doesn’t have enough social or legal recourse to really make a difference. Although the addition of equal rights laws has created a sense of strength and support for women nowadays, there remains the threat of the removal of our freedoms. I represent this idea in my story during the scene referencing Planned Parenthood, due to the recent uproar about Roe v. Wade (1973) in the United States. With Donald Trump as the current president, political parties continue to polarize, making many fear the reexamination of pro-choice laws under this administration—many hostile states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and so on, continue to push for the reenactment of old, abortion-banning laws. While men’s Viagra is still covered by insurance, many women’s birth control has been removed as a result of changes made by the Trump administration to the Affordable Care Act, as well as the defunding of Planned Parenthood from Title X. Even now, in 2020, society is trying to control women and their bodies. Although times have changed, Rukeyser’s concern for patriarchal injustices remains relevant. I wanted to include a resonating example in my story of the violence women have faced for centuries, so Marie’s unnamed father serves as the prime symbol of male toxicity. His character provides a commentary on the previous conceptions of a wife as a husband’s property, emotionally, physically, and sexually. Although there are sexist ideals that have persisted through history, new laws and social backings continue to drive change.

Throughout the second act of Rukeyser’s play, after her miscarriage, Anne begins to subtly offer her opinion to Laramie. She refutes his violent beliefs based in fascism: “But these are not planes, these are people” (Rukeyser 82). She also warns against his participation in King’s plan to overthrow the government: “It is corruption, and it works in corruption” (83). Although Anne goes so far as to tell Laramie he has to choose between her and King, he still chooses his mentor over her (84). As a result of the inequalities prevalent during this time period, it is understandable that even when a women tries to stand up to a man, she does so in a subordinated manner due to the lack of public laws and support to back up a bolder denial of the patriarchy. Even though Anne begins to raise her voice and her opinions, it seems that Laramie simply sees her as a means to support him while he attains his dreams. After this slight streak of rebellion, Anne tells Laramie that she chooses him, even though Laramie has chosen King, thus prioritizing his own self-interest. But at this time with no other support, what else could she do? The differences made via the passage of laws throughout the years to support women’s equality and rights have helped support women to gain their independence and to stand up against patriarchal oppression.

As previously mentioned, in the second act of the play Anne confronts Laramie after he confesses to stealing and tweaking her poem for his own purposes. His younger brother, Bud, becomes mentally ill around this time and accuses Laramie of trying to murder Anne. Bud rants: “Pop had that look when he spoke of the people but blood fell over Laramie’s eyes. I guess it was then I thought: he will murder Anne. I didn’t mean with a knife, with a gun, I meant with death” (Rukeyser 99). This passage seems to allude to the sense of imprisonment women feel at the hand of the patriarchy. Laramie may not have actually murdered Anne, but by suppressing her own desires in favor of his, she lives a life of unfulfillment and longing. Rukeyser’s decision to place Bud’s breakdown right after his older brother confesses to stealing Anne’s poem shows how Laramie is literally destroying pieces of her, by altering and utilizing her words. The quick contrast Bud makes between Laramie and his father, between the son who speaks of the people as tools to attain his dreams and the father who is a leftist activist supporting the needs of the people, creates a very dark image of his character, especially in relation to his suppression of Anne’s desires.

Another prevalent aspect of The Middle of the Air was the strength of Anne’s desire, not only for planes and her future but for her sexuality, as well. Anne admits to her therapist and friend Walter a kind of pansexuality: “I begin to understand love, all kinds of love, forbidden and unforbidden, in marriage, in beautiful lust, in the arabesques of all lovely invention, of all shame, burning for burning, across all barrier—I could love anything now: men, women, statues, trees” (Rukeyser 73). For a play of this time, this revolutionary addition represents the power of women’s desires and the strength of sexuality. Anne continues: “I must find my life: I have chosen to find my life through him” (74). Anne presses on, desiring the independence of her own life and interests, rather than continuing as she has, acting according to Laramie’s desires.

Throughout the play, Anne is also driven by a desire for planes and flight, which is particularly important in regard to her aspirations for her own career as well as a desire of freedom, such as one experiences in flight. In my short story, I use the idea of planes as one of Marie’s means of connecting with Anne, while establishing the idea of a plurality of perspectives through the comparison of what flight means to Marie versus what it had meant to her mother. Even though flight is an important concept for both Rukeyser’s character and mine, the meaning behind its significance differs for each. Unlike Anne who was interested in the act of flying itself, Marie is interested in the creation of flight and in being one of the people who make flight possible for others. Marie thus represents the idea that women are creating the future. A desire for freedom can also be found throughout my story through Marie’s, and other individuals’,  resistance to the objectification, sexualization, and subordination of women in reference to abortion, sexual harassment, and belief in rape victims. The relationship between public and private can also be viewed in these instances, when something occurring in private is perceived differently and therefore morphed by the public. One instance of this is with Marie’s mother, due to how she is perceived publicly as a wife—even though she was raped behind closed doors by Marie’s father, the public perception of her as her husband’s property overshadows this fact. Her own family dismisses her traumatic experience due societal misconceptions of women as sexual possessions to their spouses, where she is disregarded as a victim.

Lexi Rudnitsky, in her article “Planes, Politics, and Protofeminist Poetics,” discusses the idea of public and private experience, as well as the connection between technology and sexuality, throughout Rukeyser’s work. Rudnitsky describes Rukeyser as one of the first women writers to combine aspects of the public and the private, specifically in how the poet discusses technology in order to draw feminist concepts into politics. This unique position at the time acted to connect the private inequality of women to the public perception of technology as having new possibilities and being capable of changing ways of life. Rudnitsky quotes the philosopher Walter Benjamin to describe Rukeyser as “politicizing art” (240), specifically through her representation of the airplane as a means for a political and sexual awakening. She analyzes The Middle of the Air through the developing relationship between Anne and Laramie in connection with the surrounding climate of politics and technological advancements. Rudnitsky claims: “Rukeyser may have been the first woman poet to take on such themes [of technology]. And she was, more importantly, among the first to invoke the discourse of technology to stake out a protofeminist position” (238). By examining the public’s relationship to planes, especially in the context of war, Rukeyser is able to highlight the importance of flying in several unique ways. This is especially apparent in her depiction of Laramie, who, as Rudnitsky points out, has “taken the two most sacred things in Anne’s life—poetry and flight—and [has] used them toward an end that she finds repugnant” (251); he steals her poetry to push his own fascist, antidemocratic political views and plans. Anne appreciates planes in themselves for their quality of flight and freedom, just as Rukeyser herself always had. The use of technology in her play serves to bring the public conception of planes as a weapon, a technological advancement, or a political tool in conversation with Anne’s private conception of flight itself as being important for the liberation of individuals and of their desires. Rudnitsky writes, “After Laramie’s death, Anne emerges as the archetype of the new pilot-hero: one who uses flight to empower the masses, to stake out new ground for women, and to revolutionize poetry. Thus, her triumph not only reveals her as a woman concerned with the future; it suggests that a woman is the future” (253, original emphasis). Anne who was previously used like a plane by her husband, as a means to an end, now becomes a sort of pilot. This change suggests a revolutionary role for women in the future. It also coincides with a sexual awakening, which positions women not as sexual objects or as planes, but instead as pilots of their own desire.

In order to fight this type of sexist subordination suffered by Anne and countless other women, a change in the laws of a society pushes individuals to fight back in a more direct way. The recognition of both public and private experiences is necessary in order to identify what changes need to be made, as seen through Anne’s private relationship with the male figures in her life and the threat of political disagreement at the time. This need for the recognition of private and public experience is also represented in my story, through Marie’s public and private interactions as well as the consideration of modern laws that have changed the way women react to their subordination under men. Some of these laws include Title IX, Title VII, Breastfeeding State laws, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the Maouloud Baby V. State of Maryland 2008 retrial, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Provisions of Patient Protect and Affordable care Act [2012], the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act [2013], The Survivors’ Bill of Right Act [2016], SESTA & FOSTA preventative sex trafficking bills [2018], and the First Step Act [2018]. Although these laws have made progress to provide equal opportunities and justice, they still fall short of protecting all women, such as trans women who face violence and discrimination on a regular basis. Public discussion about and acknowledgment of others’ private experiences are necessary in order to promote progress in a society—by examining our current laws we see how far we have come, as well as how far we have to go to provide protection to all people under the law.  

Throughout many of her works, Rukeyser mentioned the concept of experience and history, specifically what happens when you mix the two. This concern is depicted in Adrienne Rich’s essay “Muriel Rukeyser: Her Vision,” which describes how individuals can change and are changed by their public environment in relation to their private experiences. Importantly, Rich’s essay points to the need for rare perspectives such as Rukeyser’s, which aim to provide a new point of view on culture based on the aforementioned relationship. Rich claims that a reader must experience Rukeyser in order to connect with her, similar to Rukeyser’s own concept of the face-to-face experience. Rukeyser’s unique perspective challenges readers to connect their own private experiences to the text, thus creating the possibility that change can arise. It is for exactly this reason that I chose to submit a short story in response to Muriel Rukeyser. As Rich describes, “From a young age [Rukeyser] seems to have understood herself as living in history—not as a static pattern but as a confluence of dynamic currents, always changing yet faithful to sources, a fluid process that is constantly shaping us and that we have the possibility of shaping” (121). This idea of living in history, with a stress on personal experience, has pushed my creative interaction through my story in order to keep the key concepts from Rukeyser’s works alive in the present. Through this piece, I believe I was able to interact with Rukeyser’s work in a way that brought her ideas of the subordination of women into our present context, with references to the societal changes that have occurred over the years, such as in the scene referencing Planned Parenthood. Rich also states, “In the past quarter century, as many silenced voices—especially women’s voices—began to bear witness, the prescience and breadth of [Rukeyser’s] vision came clearer to me—for it is a peculiarly relevant vision for our lives on this continent now” (126). Rukeyser’s work is supposed to pull a reaction from her readers and provoke women to break their silence.

Throughout The Middle of the Air, Rukeyser provides examples of a feminism-in-the-making through Anne’s subtle rejections of subordination. I aimed to bring her achievement into conversation with my own piece “Another Day in the Life of the Persevering Woman” in order to force readers in the present to interact with the past on the bases of gendered subordination, changes in law, private experiences, and public perceptions. By following Rukeyser’s advice to self-reflect on others’ work and respond to it personally in order to create change, I was able to identify how far women have come in today’s society, as well as how much violence women still face, even with all of the progress we’ve made.

Works Cited

Coontz, Stephanie. “Demystifying the Feminine Mystique.” A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. Basic Books, 2011, pp. 139-65.

Rich, Adrienne. “Muriel Rukeyser: Her Vision.” Arts of the Possible. W.W. Norton, 2001, pp.120-7.

Rudnitsky, Lexi. “Planes, Politics, and Protofeminist Poetics: Muriel Rukeyser’s ‘Theory of Flight’ and The Middle of the Air.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 27, no. 2, 2008, pp. 237-57. Project MUSE, doi: muse.jhu.edu/article/266820.

Rukeyser, Muriel. The Middle of the Air (Performance script). 1945. Edited by Eric Keenaghan. Unpublished. Original typescript archived in the Muriel Rukeyser Papers, Part I Box 40. Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.