When we read this as a class, I really wanted to focus on the last stanza, in which the granddaughter holds "...the door open for everyone/and we all emerge on the sales floor/and lose ourselves in the great common ground/of housewares on markdown."
I love the ending of this poem:
- How the granddaughter remains impartial (Should she? Is she rejecting her grandmother's culture? Is she just trying to not start a fight? Does she honestly not really care?)
- What can the door represent?
- The common ground for these women is the sales at Sears (Is Sears symbolic of American capitalism? Consumerism? Something more positive for these women?)
I also loved reading everyone's responses to the final part of the organizer: whose perspective does yours most align with?I kind of see myself as the shoppers AND the grandmother (if this is even possible). Like the American shoppers, I would definitely look sideways at someone doing something like this in a public space. I do this now to the people in my neighborhood who bring literal indoor cups of coffee to walk around the park with, or the people who hog every pavilion like they own the place. The world is not your living room! Would I go so far as to comment and try to "band together" with other people in the park? Definitely not.
Like the grandmother, I would definitely get offended and start to become stubborn if someone questioned my actions for something I really believed in. I know, I know. Definitely hypocritical considering my previous paragraph. Maybe I should try to look at things from the perspective of the coffee-bringers and non-sidewalk-walkers. Maybe just not today.
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