To Speak Up or Not: A Critical Study of Two Feminist Voices in Light of Women's Empowerment

Abstract

The present paper is a comparative study between two poems: Suad Al-Sabah's They Say (2001) and Anne Bradstreet's The Prologue (1650). The study aims to investigate certain aspects of feminist empowerment in these two poems, despite the time gap between them, and how well women's search of self-empowerment has improved over time. These poets expressed their discomfort in contemplating their poetic identities, a notion that often destabilized their efforts as writers. The poems will be closely read, interpreted and analyzed in light of women's empowerment. It is found that women have been struggling to maintain a sense of equality in terms of being heard, acknowledged and allowed to function hand in hand with man. Al-Sabah was capable to break her silence by combating the societal and religious constraints which the patriarchal world has created to abuse and maintain their power over women. Likewise, Bradstreet managed to speak up by establishing an intellectual home for herself. By and large, the two works have granted their feminist authors an authority to enter into the academic and intellectual literary spheres that enabled them to free their pens from man's domination.