How Meaning, Hostility, and Identity Are Presented in The Window by Mary Jean Chan Amelie Maurice-Jones 12th Grade

In The Window, Chan presents a speaker responding to her mother’s disrespect for her sexual queerness not with anger but with an admirable grace. Through the metaphor of a ‘window’, Chan reveals a realm of concepts that the mother- and by extension, all those homophobic- might open their mind to. Nonetheless, despite her efforts to encourage her mother to envisage such ideals, it becomes clear that the speaker’s identity is irrevocably harmed by her mother’s hostile attitudes.

The poem’s subject of sexual queerness- and the hostile attitudes attached to it- is handled with a tentative and often gentle voice that urges the reader to re-consider outdated views concerning sexuality and gender. The poem is written in a free-verse form, used to represent the flexibility of gender identity in the modern age, and this, paired with Chun’s constant application of enjambment, encourages the reader to open their mind to concepts unfamiliar and alien. The poem is closeted by reference to the setting detail of an ‘open window’ in both the opening and closing lines, which offers hope for a future in which the mother can escape her resentment of her daughter’s sexuality and ‘open’ her mind to collude with, or at least emphasise with, her...