Erica Mann Jong’s writing on literary text is categorized as marginalized literature for feminist writings .The rose in the poem written by her symbolizes love, pleasure, beauty. The persona received the love from a man but she was waiting to let the love bloom in her heart. By the time the love flows into her heart, she realizes the man’s love for her is beginning to fade. So, the persona tried to preserve the love she received from him but it perished as time moves on. She suffered the lost for years with pressure. She hopes for pleasure from the love she once received, so she took the effort to make it alive, but love was not lasting for her, turning from pleasure into pressure. In the last 2 stanzas I feel that the persona has reached to a reflecting and contemplating stage,in order to console herself, after going through bitterness of a love that has perished.
The Rose by Erica Mann Jong
You gave me a rose
last time we met.
I told myself
if it bloomed
our love would bloom,
& if it died--
O I did not
consider
the possibility.
It died.
Though I cut
the stem
on a slant
as my mother
taught me,
though I dropped
an aspirin
in the water,
it hung its head
like a spent cock
& died.
It stands
on my desk now--
straight green stalk,
blood-red clot
of bud
drooping
like a hanged man's
head.
Does this mean
we are doomed?
Does this mean
all lovers
are doomed?
O my love--
I have not read roses
as amulets
in seven years. . . .
Which doom
is worse?
To love
& lose?
Or to lose
love
altogether
& not care
whether roses
live or die?
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