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Analysis Of The Century Quilt By Marilyn Nelson Waniek

779 Words4 Pages

In “The Century Quilt”, Marilyn Nelson Waniek, portrays a deep, complex meaning through a quilt that the speaker finds her identity in. Waniek shows the reader the speakers past, present, and future through memories with her family and aspirations stitched into the quilt. These are conveyed through the literacy devices of imagery, structure, and tone. The imagery within the poem is used to clearly show how the quilt is linked to each family member, showing how important family is to the speaker. Family is something that we will never outgrow, it is something that is always with us. Waniek uses vivid colors to show the family members of the speaker. Such as, “We fell asleep under army green issued to Daddy by Supply.” (L: 3-4) They army green …show more content…

This can be seen in the structure of the poem. In the second stanza of the poem it states that the quilt has a “sweet gum leaf in each square.” (L:18 ) With this image the reader can see the freshness of a soft, green, spring leaf. This start of the leaf of a tree can represent the first memories that the speaker had with her sisters and her Meema. However, as the poem continues it shows even more memories created with the speaker's family. The shift occurs from the “sweet gum leaf” (L:18) to the yellow of the sisters and her mother's cheeks, and finally to the brownish “umber”(L:39) color of the speaker's father. This is a visual for the reader of the chronological memories that the speaker had with the many blankets of her childhood, that lead her to having her very own quilt. Waniek set the structure chronologically to show the growth of the memories just as a tree grows. As a tree grows from spring to winter, it gains and loses leaves. Also, as the tree grows it gains rings for every year. The name the speaker gives her quilt, “The Century Quilt”, fits the depiction of the tree perfectly. It fits perfectly because over the years in the speaker's life she gains memories and she gains dreams for herself and her family, yet she loses things such as her Meema. However, she continues to live on with her family creating more and more memories with them. I think it is important

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