Gavedropper By Medbh Mcguckian Analysis
3.2 Medbh McGuckian’s “Eavesdropper”
The poem “Eavesdropper” by Medbh McGuckian presents exactly this issue to the reader. The speaker in the poem addresses her pubescent younger self (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 144):
That year it was something to do with your hands:
To play about with rings, to harness rhythm
In staging bleach or henna on the hair,
Or shackling, unshackling the breasts. (McGuckian 15)
In the first stanza the author remembers how her puberty started, and she experimented with hair and jewellery (Schrage-Früh, Identities 141), and this is followed by a flashback of her first menstruation, when she felt injured (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145): “It was like a bee’s sting, or a bullet / Left in me, this mark, this sticking …show more content…
Firstly, as Michaela Schrage-Früh argues, eavesdropping could mean that child is gaining the forbidden knowledge, something that she was not supposed to hear, and therefore it implies her premature initiation into adulthood, with which she is not comfortable with (“Eavesdropper” 145). Secondly, in the literal sense of the term, an eavesdropper is someone “who drops (falls) off the eaves,” which suggest the disillusionment (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145). Thirdly, the term suggests Eve, and “drop” into the fallen world of the female sexuality fertility and childbearing (Flynn 422). Then, the term denotes the idea of a fall from grace, consequently the girl awakening sexuality is represented “as a child’s paradise lost” (Schrage-Früh, Identities 142). But, even the first name of the poem “That Year” implied the main idea of the poem. “That” points out to the very particular moment of the speaker’s past, which she could never forget because the year was marked by the onset of the menstruation and sexual marking between childhood and adulthood (Flynn 422). Thus, the poems present an identity crisis of identity, caused by upcoming female experiences (Flynn 422), such as role of mother and wife on the one side and awakening sexuality (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145) and subsequent …show more content…
By addressing to the Celtic sheela-na-gigs, which are the carving with a grotesque pictured female genitals and “yoni,” which translation from Sanskrit is “sacred place” (Sedlmayr 264), Meehan draws attention to the ambiguity of history, which provides a wide range of female images. Especially image of “yoni,” of the female genitals disrupts the existing canons of sexuality. In opposition to the Western manner, Tantrics sees female sexuality as active and “yoni” is a source of power and divine presence (Feuerstein 246), “both erotic and magical” (Sedlmayr 264). By combining the Cetlic, Eastern and Western traditions Meehan “not only outlines the anti-teleological non-linearity of her historical positioning, but also proclaims both a new sensual spirituality and a spiritual sensuality” (Sedlmayr
The poem “Eavesdropper” by Medbh McGuckian presents exactly this issue to the reader. The speaker in the poem addresses her pubescent younger self (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 144):
That year it was something to do with your hands:
To play about with rings, to harness rhythm
In staging bleach or henna on the hair,
Or shackling, unshackling the breasts. (McGuckian 15)
In the first stanza the author remembers how her puberty started, and she experimented with hair and jewellery (Schrage-Früh, Identities 141), and this is followed by a flashback of her first menstruation, when she felt injured (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145): “It was like a bee’s sting, or a bullet / Left in me, this mark, this sticking …show more content…
Firstly, as Michaela Schrage-Früh argues, eavesdropping could mean that child is gaining the forbidden knowledge, something that she was not supposed to hear, and therefore it implies her premature initiation into adulthood, with which she is not comfortable with (“Eavesdropper” 145). Secondly, in the literal sense of the term, an eavesdropper is someone “who drops (falls) off the eaves,” which suggest the disillusionment (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145). Thirdly, the term suggests Eve, and “drop” into the fallen world of the female sexuality fertility and childbearing (Flynn 422). Then, the term denotes the idea of a fall from grace, consequently the girl awakening sexuality is represented “as a child’s paradise lost” (Schrage-Früh, Identities 142). But, even the first name of the poem “That Year” implied the main idea of the poem. “That” points out to the very particular moment of the speaker’s past, which she could never forget because the year was marked by the onset of the menstruation and sexual marking between childhood and adulthood (Flynn 422). Thus, the poems present an identity crisis of identity, caused by upcoming female experiences (Flynn 422), such as role of mother and wife on the one side and awakening sexuality (Schrage-Früh, “Eavesdropper” 145) and subsequent …show more content…
By addressing to the Celtic sheela-na-gigs, which are the carving with a grotesque pictured female genitals and “yoni,” which translation from Sanskrit is “sacred place” (Sedlmayr 264), Meehan draws attention to the ambiguity of history, which provides a wide range of female images. Especially image of “yoni,” of the female genitals disrupts the existing canons of sexuality. In opposition to the Western manner, Tantrics sees female sexuality as active and “yoni” is a source of power and divine presence (Feuerstein 246), “both erotic and magical” (Sedlmayr 264). By combining the Cetlic, Eastern and Western traditions Meehan “not only outlines the anti-teleological non-linearity of her historical positioning, but also proclaims both a new sensual spirituality and a spiritual sensuality” (Sedlmayr