Marilyn Nelson Waniek's The Century Quilt

In Marilyn Nelson Waniek's "The Century Quilt" there is a diverse and loving home, and a sure symbol of generations of a family and childhood within the blanket. Through warm imagery and reminiscent tone, the measure of this quilt to Waniek's life is illustrated as a profound connection and admiration of her family and a nostalgic escape. The color illuminated imagery draws a relationship between family and love through the quilt. "Six Van Dyke brown squares/ two white ones/ yellow brown of mama's cheeks" The delicate colors remind the poet of her childhood's simplicity, the gentleness of her mother's being, and begins to suggest a mixture of races within her household. "yellow sisters/white family" Wankiek speaks of her two distinct races, the Indian and the white, in an acclaiming manner which once again connects the loveliness of the quilt and how it acts as a catalyst to the influx of memories of a wholesome home that sees no color

Nostalgia is a conspicuous subject seen throughout the poem. "My sister and I were in love with meema's Indian blanket" The begining of her evocative and romantic tone is arrayed when she introduces the quilt. The use of past tense "were in love" suggest the poet's state of nostalgia of her childhood because of how she and her sibling so innocently and lovlingly admire the quilt that poses an almost foreign and mystical thing to them. "perhaps under this quilt I'd dream of myself...within the dream of myself perhaps I'd meet my son" The child wrapped up in the blanket of faultless fantasy, longs and wonders about the future, and all its wonderful possiblities. Now as an adult, she knows all the outcomes of her past dreams, but loves to remember how charmingly clueless she was, just like most children are. Waniek dreaming under the quilt that symbolizes love and family triggers thoughts of her own future love and