I Cannot Remember All The Times Analysis

Syra Aponte

Professor French

ENC II

22 October 2015

Women’s Desire for the Perfect Man

Looks are not all of what women want because that is only skin deep. For women, they look for certain traits that make up the perfect apple to their eyes. There are many qualities that women would want in a man that would make a perfect male romantic partner. There are four qualities that are most desired which are also shown through the perspective of the child in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”; through the prospective of the abused wife in Jo Carson’s “I Cannot Remember All the Times”; and through the prospective of the child in Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”. The male figure’s traits, which women want in a man, are portrayed though quotes

Now that is a trait that will make the perfect make romantic partner, and that is portrayed from the father in Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”. The son, in the poem, sees his father working hard and no one seems to thank him for it. Even with the father’s aching hands that are constantly cracked by the harsh winter all week, he does not get any recognition. Even with all the anger in the house, the father does not transfer the aggression or anger to the son “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well”(Hayden 1). The son sees his father as someone who does everything and asks for nothing in return. He polishes the child’s good shoes. Looking more into detail, the child’s good shoes are normal working shoes; the father decides to polish them anyway. That action portrays that he wants the best for his

Through view point of the abused women in Jo Carson’s “I Cannot Remember all The Times”, it will portray the most of what women want in a male romantic partner. That trait is having morals. Women want men that know not to scar their lover mentally or physically, “I can name what of me he broke: my nose, my arm, and four ribs in the course of six year’s of marriage”(Carson 2). Women want men to tell their romantic partner that they are beautiful, and not to verbally abuse them with slanderous words, “When he begins to call you cunt and whore and threatens to kill you if you try to go”(Carson 2). The woman in the poem is unhappy and scarred because she does not have the perfect male romantic partner. If the male in Carson’s poem had all the traits ( like flexibility, selflessness, ability to prioritize, and have morals) combined together, the abused women would not be referred to as “the abused woman”, but the joyous woman in Jo Carson’s “I Can Remember All the