Analysis of the "Language of the Brag"

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Tina Holocom
Language and diction have been useful in the poem "The Language of the Brag" by Sharon Olds to convey the themes of women empowerment. Something that caught my attention from your post is that the poem suggests that women have bragging rights. The word choices by the poet suggest the significance of women and that they are unique. She writes, "I have lain down and sweated and shaken/ and passed blood and feces and water and/ slowly alone in the center of a circle I have/ passed the new person out" (Olds Lines 22-25). Childbirth only occurs in women, and word choice such as passing feces and blood as part of the process of giving birth shows the challenges that women undergo. The words in the poem are used to shape gender identity. The poet challenges the abjections to the material body, and that is why most of the details focus on the process of motherhood. Her use of diction has been critical in presenting the poem as an extended metaphor that compares the process of creating life to the process of creating art. She writes, "I and the other women this exceptional act with the exceptional heroic body" (Olds Lines 31-32). She uses vivid imagery to describe the challenges that women face during the period of pregnancy and what occurs at childbirth. The themes of empowerment also arise in the final stanza, where women's ability to give birth is regarded as an achievement. This is where the bragging occurs, and she glorifies the sacrifices and actions of women. She says, "I and the other women this exceptional / a...