Peter Bruegel Explication

Roles in Society
In the poem Corn Harvest, by William Carlos Williams, Williams’ use of language and tone penetrates the readers’ mind to suggest the different roles, lifestyles and hardships a woman and a man endures in peasant day society. While the women do the petty, behind the scenes work, the men are handling physical, outdoors work.
In the first half of the poem, Williams describes the hardships of a working male peasant. “Relaxed / by his morning labors”(7-8). Williams used of language propose that the reaper is physically drained and relaxing is his key to happiness. “Summer!(1)” Williams’ use of an exclamation point at the end of summer describes how much the reaper enjoys this season. Summer, people sees as a happy month, and everything grows and get nutrition from. The title “The Corn Harvest” ties well into why summer is the first word of the poem. Because summer also happens to be the season when all the harvesting is done and crops are collected as well.
While men’s roles are reapers, the women hold a more relaxed job. They had “brought him [reaper] his lunch”(14). As the reader could see, the women have a much more relaxed job according to the poem. Williams hints that since women have a lesser role in society then men, they are treated less as human beings. The women are treated more along the lines of servants. Also, the women do not relax by sleeping. They relax by gossiping. “They gather gossiping/ under a tree.” Williams’ use of language suggests that the tree is the women hangout spot, a place where they get together and socialize. The women huddle under the tree to gather their thoughts and ideas and discuss the latest gossip while the men, like the reaper, share his thoughts, and gossip only among himself.

Williams, though describes the hardships a man must endures in peasant day society, uses hypocritical irony to show how lazy a man could be as well. “Young// reaper enjoying his noonday rest completely”(3-6). According to this excerpt, Williams hints to the reader that the reaper’s “noonday rest” is not just happening that day, but happens on a daily basic, suggesting to the readers that the reaper is exhausted once noonday comes. Also, the reaper, though finished his work, becomes lazy once his morning deeds are done. The reaper doesn’t sleep sitting, but instead falls asleep “sprawled”(9). As if he is too tired or lazy to get up. His morning deeds had drained him of his energy and feels that he must rest quickly. As if he doesn’t, the chance of getting to sleep will have passed by and he had not had taken it.