This is a poem that is filled with imagery that the author uses to
identify the reader with what I feel were personal stresses in her own life. In
class we talked about Anne as an emotionally challenged women who couldn’t
cope with every day life. The Title of the poem suggests by saying “Her”
that she is talking about someone else that she could relate to. However I think
that instead she might have been talking about her self. Through out the poem
she shows the Worlds view of the witch and then gives her own feelings on the
subject such as “ I have been her kind” and “ A woman like that is not a
woman at all.” All the stanzas have seven lines and all have the same last
line. It seems that the stanzas slowly lead up to some kind of explanation to
the way women are treated. Through out the poem the tone is a dreary one. We are
taken through the story relating to the witch and agreeing with the fact that
these obscene gestures by the witch, “ waving my nude arms at villages going
by” are some how warranted. It is obvious that that the symbolism and metaphor
shows us a witch and I think also these metaphors relate to the author and how
she feels she is labeled. In the first stanza we get a picture of classical
views of what a witch symbolizes, and this then tells me how Anne must feel. She
says “ braver at night/ over the plain houses light by light.” I think this
is saying that she is more comfortable at night, maybe in seclusion, and looks
down on the average “normal” home light by light and sees that as been the
norm and want nothing to do with it. I think she feels different than the rest
and the fact that she uses dark and light might even say she might even feel
evil. She even states she is “out of mind” which is what I think she’s
saying to show she is different and she feels that is how she is looked at and
sarcastically says that she can’t be the ideal woman. The second stanza seems
different to me. It seems to be more symbolic of her own life. I see a witch,
maybe herself obsess with the arranging of her so-called cave. I think this is
symbolic of her home life and shows everyone’s image of an ugly witch in a
cave doing ugly witch things. I think this is how she felt about the average
housewife in that she says, “ A woman like that is misunderstood.” I think
she meant that the average housewife is fooling herself. It’s like she took a
pause right in the middle of the poem to let the reader know whom she was
talking about. She was letting everybody know she couldn’t stand the fact that
she had to make a happy home just to get right with society. The third stanza I
feel shows the anger she felt towards society. She defies her driver as if to
through it in his face that she is a witch by throwing her naked arms. She
relates her torment to a like medieval time when witches were burned at the
stake and beaten just for who they were, “and my ribs crack were your wheels
wind. I think here she has made it through the torture and the ride home hurts
do to her injuries. But never the less she made it and is not ashamed. I think
she laughs at the women who deny their own impulses and feels that is what is
truly ugly.