{"id":127,"date":"2016-09-15T22:38:20","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T02:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=127"},"modified":"2016-09-15T22:40:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T02:40:06","slug":"power-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2016\/09\/15\/power-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cHer body bombarded for years\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 by the element<\/p>\n<p>she had purified<\/p>\n<p>\u2026<\/p>\n<p>She died\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a\u00a0famous woman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 denying<\/p>\n<p>her wounds<\/p>\n<p>denying<\/p>\n<p>her wounds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 came\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from the same source as her power\u201d (page 135)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Calibri;font-size: medium\">In the poem \u201cPower\u201d Adrienne Rich describes Madame Curie\u2019s power and the concomitant suffering she further endures with that power. Importantly, Rich states that Madame Curie\u2019s power came not just at the same time as her suffering, but \u201cfrom the same source.\u201d I think this alludes to a theme common to many of Rich\u2019s poems, that suffering is often the price of power. Rich indicates that the issue of suffering being inextricable from power is a problem particularly faced by woman, as she references Madame Curie\u2019s (female) body: \u201cshe must have known she suffered from radiation sickness \/ her body bombarded for years by the element \/ she had purified.&#8221; Her body was bombarded for years by that which gave her power. I think this warrants an important comparison to Audre Lorde\u2019s treatment of the erotic in her essay \u201cUses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.\u201d In Lorde\u2019s essay, she describes the way in which the Erotic is a source of power that has long been looked down upon and suppressed in women. In order to take ownership of the Erotic and become powerful, they must subject themselves to the scrutiny of a misogynistic society, and they must suffer for it. Furthermore, as Rich points out, women must deny that they suffer at all: \u201cShe died a famous woman denying \/ her wounds \/ denying \/ her wounds came from the same sources as her power.\u201d Rich\u2019s repeats \u201cdenying her wounds\u201d to suggest that in order to maintain one\u2019s power, or maybe to avoid the possibility of being stripped of it,\u00a0women must deny their suffering, deny their wounds. Had Madame Curie, or any woman with power, recognized and brought attention to her plight and her wounds, her weaknesses would be emphasized and would\u00a0overshadow her accomplishments. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHer body bombarded for years\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 by the element she had purified \u2026 She died\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a\u00a0famous woman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 denying her wounds denying her wounds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 came\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from the same source as her power\u201d (page 135) In the poem \u201cPower\u201d Adrienne Rich describes Madame Curie\u2019s power and the concomitant suffering she further endures with that power. Importantly, Rich states &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2016\/09\/15\/power-3\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Power<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}