Huswifery

In Taylor's "Huswifery" the reader can readily see the use of images to depict the action of the poem. The speaker begins by stating "Make me, O Lord, Thy Spinning Wheel complete" (line 1). The speaker then goes on to describe various parts of a spinning wheel and comparing them to: Holy Word, Affections, and Soul in the first stanza. In the second stanza the reader can see that the speaker wants God to lead the path because, "Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills" (10). Thus, the speaker believes that God's laws make life good and wants to follow them as closely as possible. From the poem, one can conclude that the speaker is potentially asking for God to guide him to glory (heaven) and vows to follow God's orders. It is plausible to conclude that the idea of the spinning-wheel represents the hardworking nature of the Puritans. The speaker begins with a spinning wheel and finally ends with a cloth. This may represent the progression of humans throughout their lifetime in order to reach glory regardless of whether or not they are elected. They want to reach the cloth stage, meaning, they want to be as close to God as possible.

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=**Women during the Puritan Era**=

During the Puritan Era women were seen as inferior writers compared to men. Women who wrote were regarded as having no sense. Women writers were always disregarded by male poets, and their works were rarely published. Anne Bradstreet was a female poet that lived during the early development of the American colonies which was a society completely dominated my male works. Just by taking a look at some of the titles to her poems, one can notice that there is a trend in that it is about the family and duties that women were a part of the everyday lives of women.

In Bradstreet's poem "The Prologue", there seems to be a call to male writers and telling them that women writers do not consider themselves as superior to them. From the first stanza, the reader can get a sense of where Bradstreet is going with this poem with lines such as "Of cities founded, commonwealths begun, / For my mean pen are too superior things" (2-3). Here the reader can conclude that Bradstreet is offering an explanation to male writers regarding the type of poetry that women write. She claims that women have no ability or interest to write about such ideas like wars or anything that is typically associated with the male sex. In another line the speaker comments on how male writers will dismiss any type of poetry by women with, "If what I do prove well, it won't advance, / They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance" (29-30). Again, Bradstreet realizes that women writers in her time will never reach the same level as men. Even though she accepts this type of criticism toward her writing, Bradstreet continued to write. This was pivotal because it can be argued that she was an early pioneer that opened the doors for future women writers.