Analysis of The Young Housewife

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)



At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband’s house.
I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.


Scheme XXXA XXXBX ABX
Poetic Form
Metre 111011 1010101 010110101 11100011 10111101 110111101 11100 111101010 10101 011111 11010110 111110110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 390
Words 76
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 5, 3
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 102
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

22 sec read
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William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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