Joy Harjo - The Woman Hanging From The Thirteenth Floor Window

THEME: The dissolution of Native American culture

In The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window, Joy Harjo tells the tragic story of
a woman finding herself in a suicidal position. It can also be looked at as a subtle tale of how an entire
culture, i.e. the Native American culture, became isolated and lost its roots.

The speaker seems not to identify with the woman reffered to as she throughout the entire
poem but the way the speaker describes the emotions of the woman might reveal some kind of
connection.By choosing this title for the poem and repeating it throughout the entire text, Harjo invites
the reader to face one of the most difficult life situations in which any person might ever find himself
or, in this case, herself.

She hangs may mean she is in this difficult position not only physically but also mentally.It is
like she has no exact, stable place of her own to stay in. She hangs between places, cultures, societies.
This also applies to the theme since Native American culture can be seen as hanging exactly like the
woman. A swirl of birds over her head might reffer to a glance of pure nature, since she is hanging
from a skyscrapper on the 13th floor in Chicago.

In the verse She thinks she will be set free the attention is drawn to the concept of freedom,
which here may mean death, since she may only be set free either by letting herself fall or by climbing
back up. By telling us that the woman is not alone, the speaker individualizes her and makes the reader
feel more attached, as if she would be any other woman that the reader knows.

Harjo then goes on to give more details about the womans life by presenting her in many
roles that people take during their lives: a woman of children (a mother), her mothers daughter,
fathers son, several pieces between the two husbands she has had. Thus, the readers can also identify
themselves with her.

The readers find out the names of her children Carlos, Margaret, Jimmy but not of the woman,
though. Maybe because she is all the women of the apartment building, who stand watching her,
watching themseleves and thus, she has no identity of her own, just like the entire Native American
culture had simply dissolved . In the previous stanza, Harjo also raises awareness towards the fact that
there are a lot of other women and also men in this situation, probabily left alone and feeling lost,
being on the edge to commit suicide.

When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down plates here it is shown how important
her childhood memories are to the woman. Although she is hanging from the window, she is somehow
disconnecting herself and she is going back to a time and a place where she felt good, when and where
she was a baby and they rocked her and someone cared about her. The woman may be going thourgh
a cultural schock and she misses the Native American habits and the early times, before the
disintegation of her culture.

In some places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters and butts itself against the
asphalt. This verse presents the psychological state of the woman, the chaos and how she feels that
this place is worse than others. It could be that she doesnt find her place here and longs for something
different, more close to the natures beauty and calmness, for something she, and many others like her,
have lost.
 She is dangling just as the Native American culture has been left dangling, with no beggining
and no sure end, just dangling in history and true Native Americans hearts. There is also this large
gap between the way she must feel when she hears her grandmothers voice and when she hears the
ones that scream from below for her to jump.

In the verse she thinks of the color of her skin, and of Chigago streets, and of waterfalls and
pines it is shown how the woman tries to remember herself, who she is and where she came from and
how much her life in the city contrasts with the Native American community. By crying for the lost
beauty of her own life , she, once again, tries to find comfort in her memories as a young child. The
lost beauty might represent the deconstructed Native American culture.

She would speak, she would like to communicate, to send a message but it seems like she
wouldnt be taken intro consideration, her teeth break off at the edges. This also happens with the
Native Americans voices who are simply not heard.

The ending offers hope to the readers that she could have reassert her identity as it was
presented in the poem but it also discusses the possibility of her listening to her own life break loose,
as she falls from the 13th floor window. By choosing the verb listening and creating this auditive
imagery, Harjo may have, once again, reffered to the spiritual music which lies at the actual heart of
the Native American culture.

The ending itself, without a clear conclusion, leaves the readers with the same image of the
woman hanging, dangling, contemplating the past and not being able to climb and neither to jump,
whilst revealing the contemporary Native American cultures situation, which has also been left
hanging between survival and complete dissolution.