The Oppression of the Other

The poem acts as a critique of social norms that stigmatise those who exist outside convention. This is particularly prevalent with women, as indicated by the poem’s strong feminist element, but it can easily be applied to people of other minority genders, sexualities, and cultures. In the first stanza, the speaker goes into the night on a “lonely”, solitary venture, (Line 5) yet this solitude makes her “braver” (Line 2). She flies above the confined, well-lit houses, which represent conventional domestic living. The speaker exists outside these physical and metaphorical structures, removed from everyday life. In the following stanza, the speaker appears to embrace domestic living by keeping a home, cooking, and cleaning. However, this home isn’t one of the houses from the first stanza but rather “caves in the woods” (Line 8). This brings to mind that archetypal hermit figure who lives...