I Was My Own Route

Summary

I Was My Own Route

‘I Was My Own Route’ is a that carries the theme of women’s liberation, freedom and social justice. The poet depicts how the women are burdened with the patriarchal ideologies from the past. Therefore, de Burgos urges the women to detach themselves from the past so as to redefine their own identity.

The poem ‘I was My Own Route’ has altogether 6 stanzas. Each stanza expresses the powerful feelings of the poet who is always remaining in between masculinity and her own femininity. She begins her poem reflecting her past feelings when she wished to convert herself as the wishes of the men. In such acts, she has found a hide and seek game between her own instinct and the instinct of the patriarchal society. The same game inspired herself to move forward to investigate a new path that is totally new for all. Though it is challenging, she joyfully accepted it.

In discovering a new path, she moves alone mainly to get her internal happiness and a feeling of intimate liberation. She has described her journey to a new path beautifully where she faced a serious problem in balancing herself and the truth of the time. However, she expresses her joy in discovering a new route of her life that has no history, even she doubts for its future. Anyways she is happy enough living in the present and waiting for the response of the time. To denote this, she has repeated a line in the poem. “a game of hide and seek with my being but l was made of nows”. This refrain has captured the main essence of the poem. The poem is written in free verse and it is the perfect example of a poem of the marginalized community.