Other Women in the Kitchen

Paule Marshall’s “Poets in the Kitchen” tells how Marshall’s experiences listening to her mother and other women of her life as they talked around the kitchen and table have shaped her life trajectory and inspired her to write. This entire situation stemmed from a man who presented the idea of women’s childhood experiences of being with their mom in the kitchen as a way of women being oppressed in their childhood creativity experiences. However, Marshall takes this idea of “suppression of creativity” and lists that as inspiration to her own writing. I think it’s interesting to compare Marshall’s theory of being pigeon-holed to a stereotype to modern women writers and creators who have used the stereotypical ideas of womanhood as a means for creative expression.

One example comes from other writers from the semester such as Edwidge Danticat and Zora Neale Hurston who draw from life experiences and create characters who use these type-casted roles of women and use them to break through barriers. For example, in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God the character of Janie is put into various “roles” as a woman. She is oppressed by her husband and forced to work a job that she doesn’t necessarily enjoy. However, much like Marshall she uses these moments as motivation and manages to find love with Tea Cake and not allow these roles to oppress her. In Hurston’s actual life, her father was the mayor of a small, all black community and sort of her on the back-burner, much in the same way Janie’s husband did in the novel. Also, Edwidge Danticat draws on real life experiences of being type casted in “womanly” roles and uses them for her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory. In actuality Danticat’s parents moved out of Haiti when she was very young and put her in the role of helping to raise her brother along with her aunt. In Breat , Eyes, Memory the main character, Sophie, faces similar struggles after ties with her own family are severely injured and she is forced to raise a child. It is easy to see Marshall’s idea of letting these stereotypes control the creative process amongst women writers.

“They taught me my first lessons in the narrative art.” Marshall writes, “They trained my ear. They set a standard of excellence.”And the idea of taking distinctly feminine moments in life and using them to create art is not necessarily for writers, women in other mediums have adopted this style as well. For example, lesbian director Kimberly Pierce, drew on experiences of being oppressed and accused of being “stuck in the kitchen” to create the film “Boys Don’t Cry,” which tells the story of a young lesbian woman who is pretending to be a young man and finds love. Pierce’s distinctly feminine experiences as a lesbian allowed her to create one of the greatest films of the 1990’s.

Paule Marshall’s “Poets in the Kitchen” is a manifesto for women across the country to take distinct moments in life that would traditionally hold them back and use them to creative art. It’s easy to see this concept in the things we’ve read this semester alone: Danticat and Hurston use these ideas in their own novels. It’s even evident in other forms of art, such as film where Kimberly Pierce was able to use this idea to create a motion picture. Marshall’s idea was as relevant fifty years ago as it is currently.