The Roofwalker by Adrienne Rich Flashcards
How is The Roofwalker structures? What are the benefits of this?
Free verse → allows for a more direct and immediate voice
What is the effect of short sentences, full stops and commas in The Roofwalker, especially in the opening lines
Slow the tempo of the poem
Discuss the structure of the second stanza in The Roofwalker
In the three lines of the second stanza, Rich talks about feeling exposed and vulnerable. This small stanza itself is placed separate from the rest of the poem, exposed
“I feel like them up there:
exposed, larger than life,
and due to break my neck”
Quote the opening lines of The Roofwalker and discuss the image
"Over the half-finished houses night comes. The builders stand on the roof. It is quiet after the hammers, the pulleys hang slack."
○Very atmospheric
○ Short sentences create a quiet and stillness
○ Silence
○ ‘half-finished’ → abandonment
What might the images of a “wave of darkness” and “burning deck” represent in The Roofwalker?
Watching her marriage collapse and disintegrate
Quote the closing lines of The Roofwalker and discuss the image
"...sitting in the lamplight against cream wallpaper reading - not with indifference- about a naked man fleeing across the roofs."
○ Alternate life - what could have been
○ This life is content, secure and cosy
○ She didn’t have to take the risks - she could have been the normal person sitting in a cream living room, reading about those who did
○ Description of the wallpaper as ‘cream’ makes me think that Rich views this life as mundane and boring
QUOTE: metaphor, ‘The … magnified’
“The sky
is a torn sail where figures
pass magnified”
○ Gives great sense of time of day
○ The setting sun elongates and magnifies the shadows of the workers
What does the word ‘fleeing’ suggest in The Roofwalker?
Seems spur of the moment and exciting and full of life and energy, but also suggests running from fears and problems
