The Poverty of the Woman Who Turned Herself into Stone

“Into stone,

This struggle

Has turned me

Into stone.”

She has no hands.

She is the folded hand.

A fist, frozen. Permafrost

Anger that cannot thaw into sorrow.

She has no eyes

She is the blinded eye.

She is her own blinding dark.

At noon, her socket carries the night.

She is all ears.

Voices weigh her down.

She sinks into a swill of noises.

Silence is not always her own choice.

She wears a monochrome of gray.

Clowns, orphans, soldiers at war –

Their laughter has that stone –

Texture of gray.

The poem entitled “The Poverty of the Woman Who Turned Herself into Stone” is a classic Filipino poem that was written by Lina Sagaral-Reyes, a classic Filipino poet. The story that was describe by the poem is pretty harsh, and that makes the poem more interesting and mind boggling.

The speaker of the poem, which is a woman, sees and describes the situation of the character presented in the poem. The poem is in the third person point of view. The “stone” in the poem represent the state of the woman wherein she is no longer capable of feeling any emotion. It represents her being numb to the cold and pain from the judgment of the people around her. It can be implied that she has turned into a stone-hearted woman. She is always angry and does not feel sorrow. Her life is only of a single color – gray – which is a color that symbolizes sadness, bleakness and dullness.

What is the theme of the poem? Basically, the poem have two themes, the first theme of the poem is the harsh reality of life which is poverty. The woman, though she struggled to elevate herself from poverty, she is unable to get away from her bitter situation. Instead, she is rooted there, unable to move, like a stone. Poverty was never her choice, but people weighed her down and she descends deeper into the sinkhole that she is already in. The second theme, is that behind the masks of smiles and laughter of some people are really pain and suffering. People like the clowns, orphans and the soldiers hide their true feelings because they do not want other people to see their pain.

Poverty forced the woman to endure her struggles without complaining. She thinks that there is nothing she can do anymore to change her life, so she just remains where she is and just listens to the voices of the people who weigh her down. Poverty also made her blind, and she chose not to see the ugly truth and reality. She just allowed herself to be swallowed by the darkness of her suffering.