Although it is less well-known than some of her other works, Anne Bradstreet's seemingly" less ambitious poem "The Prologue,"" is actually a tense and skilled exploration of the Puritan desire to relate spirituality to everyday life. Bradstreet's use of poetic techniques in "The Prologue"" shows a more intimate and more realistic designed reference in of her other poems, because it is more personal. .
Bradstreet's "The Prologue," portrays the struggles of being a woman in a Puritan society. Women weren't allowed to speak their minds or have their own opinions. With this poem, Bradstreet acknowledges her role as a woman in society even if she doesn't agree with it. "Men can do best, and women know it well." Regardless of her acknowledgment of her role in society, she uses her poetry to convey her feelings and opinions about it through honesty and satire. In this way, she uses satire to confuse the gender issue, and ultimately to gain some ground for her cause (Study Mode). .
In lines 25-30," Bradstreet expresses her everyday struggles and thoughts, by writing, "I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who says my hand a needle better fits./A Poet's Pen all scorn I should thus wrong,/For such despite they cast on female wits./If what I do prove well, it won't advance,/They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance." Lines twenty-five through thirty particularly relate the life struggle of a female poet. .
The diction of these lines "her choice to include the words "who says my hand a needle better fits," speaks directly to the (at the time) current debate over a woman's place in society. The imagery of the needle in her hand is a direct reference to what "traditional women's work" in the home would've been in that time period. Bradstreet's voice is a clear and rebellious rejection of the argument that women can't think independently "If what I do prove well, it won't advance,/They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance".
