Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The narrative point of view is in the first-person perspective from a woman—presumed to be black—with large hips.
Form and Meter
The poem is written in free verse without a set meter or rhyme scheme.
Metaphors and Similes
The speaker claims great sexual power with lies within her hips through simile: “i have known them /
to put a spell on a man and / spin him like a top!”
Alliteration and Assonance
The title of the poem is an example of alliteration with the repetition of the “h” sound. In addition, nine of the poem’s fifteen lines begin with either “these” or “the” creating an alliterative recurrence of the “th” sound.
Irony
Hips endow her power to make a man spin. An ironic inversion of patriarchal misogyny which places the woman in submission at all times.
Genre
Feminist/African-American
Setting
Unidentified, but assumed to be someplace in the United States following the Civil Rights and Feminist movements.
Tone
The tone is unabashedly proud with an undertone of defiance.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Speaker and her big hips. Antagonist: All oppressive aspects of society attempting to coerce conformist views regarding all ideals of beauty.
Major Conflict
The conflict is between the woman with big hips and the societal ideal of feminine perfection being on based on being thin, slender and symmetrical in body shape.
Climax
The climax of the poem occurs at the moment the woman realizes and asserts that there is magic in her hips. https://na172.lightning.force.com/lightning/page/home
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The assertion from the speaker that her hips have “never been enslaved” is an allusion to the history of slavery in the United States is the poem’s most explicit suggestion that the speaker is black.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The hips are part of the whole body and since most of the poem symbolizes the entirety of the woman rather than being restricted to just the narrow implication of the middle of that body, the entire homage is an example of synecdoche.
Personification
Attribution of sentience specifically located in the hips in the lines admitting they go where they want and do what they want is an example of personification.
Hyperbole
Overstatement of the magical sexual power of hips which have been known to spin a man like a top.
Onomatopoeia
N/A
