Revolt from Hymen
By:
Angela Manalang Gloria

O to be free at last, to sleep at last
As infants sleep within the womb of rest!

To stir and stirring find no blackness vast
With passion weighted down upon the breast,

To turn the face this way and that and feel
No kisses festering on it like sores,

To be alone at last, broken the seal
That marks the flesh no better than a whore’s!

Analysis:

In my understanding, this poem talks about a women‘s being free for something. This something I think is free for loses her virginity. She will enjoy life maybe being not afraid of losing something in her morality again or she is free from the male-dominated society that she is living in, because of what Angela Manalang Gloria says in her poem that ”O to be free at last, to sleep at last/As infants sleep within the womb of rest!” I also believe that the woman is sexually abuse by men. I don’t know whether she is married or not. But what is important is we know that this woman had been abuse. What makes it a woman is how the woman faces the reality that she was no longer a virgin because of the abuses that she experiences. The central character of this poem is about a woman that feels free for losing her virginity. Revolt from Hymen means is “revolt is about celebration of that freedom and for “hymen means woman and society's concept of femininity. This poem is kind of tragedy poem for me, because of what the woman happened to her.
There are some approaches that can apply on this poem. First Feminism approach is one that fit on this because this is most controversial poem of all, it tells about a woman who had been abused. Second, formalism approach, on the text itself it shows how the poet tells the reader the reality or the fact that there are many woman who are experiencing sexual abuse either in their home, in their job and etc...