The "One Girl at the Boys Party" uses a mathematical metaphor throughout the poem. I believe this is to portray how members of the opposite sex at a young age are as complicated as math problems to each other. Mathematics is considered a universal language, but that is only if you understand it. The poem is seen from the eyes of a mother after she drops her daughter off at a pool party, and because of the mothers age and experience, she is able to understand the complexities that go on between the boys and the one girl there, and is able to calculate the situation to get a deeper understanding of their interaction through a mathematics equation.
This poem made me think of how parents always think they know what other children are going to do to corrupt their child or how theyre going to behave around the opposite sex, and in their "because I said so" moments they feel they understand everything in such a way that it is as concrete as mathematics. I disagree with this only because (to continue with Olds metaphor) a lot of variables exist in every given situation, ecspecially their childs ability to exponentially suprise them, by not allowing themselves to be negated by the pressures of their peers or to be defined in terms of concrete numbers.
I also found it slightly odd that she brought such sexual references into a poem about a girl young enough to wear a bathing suit "with hamburgers and french fries printed on it" and referencing the boys "curve of their sexes". I guess this was to portray how early parents worry about their children behaving in a sexual manner, but I still found it very uncomfortable how blatantly she refers to the sexuality of young children.
Well, it also could represent that through life, we calculate like computers, and sense mathematical expressions are computer-like language projected from the human mind, it’s really just a process of calculation that occurs, much like genetics. Therefore yes mathematical expression can be used for universal explanation of sexuality amount humans.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker here is actually imagining what might be going through the mind of her daughter--so, the math ref is her way of undercutting stereotypes of girls--the girl can think, calculate--even if it is unselfconscious--ie., just how her mind works. The sexual reference is also more "matter of fact": i,e, the speaker is not trying to present an idealized stereotype of a young girl, but to image a real one in all her complex prepubescence; hence the contrasting images, at once childlike (the print on the bathing suit) and proto adult (sexual)--Olds is a "frank" writer in this way... see the article in the Lit Resource Ctr we skimmed in class this wk (can't recall the title, but you'll recongize it, Olds not afraid of the physical, or something like that...)
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