Point of View

“Sacred Emily” is written from the speaker’s first-person point of view as she manages her household and considers her desire to write. Stein wrote this avant garde poem in a stream of consciousness style, meaning that it is an uninterrupted flow of thoughts, feelings, and reactions.This gives it both an interior and exterior feel as the speaker suggests the soundscapes in her domestic environment alongside her own thoughts. For example, the lines “Apron. / Neither best set. / Do I make faces like that at you. / Pinkie. / Not writing not writing another” identify an object the speaker uses for her domestic tasks, possibly discuss a set of silverware or linen or something alike, seemingly reprimand a child, mention a finger, and anxiously remember a lack of a writing practice (125-9).

This particular speaker categorizes herself among the “wives of great men,” and even though she...