The Young Housewife

William Carlos Williams is considered to be a very progressive writer for his time. He worked as a physician along with writing poetry, and he is closely associated with the Modernist and Imagist movements in American literature. “The Young Housewife” first appeared in publication in 1916. It is written entirely in free verse. It is a short poem that details the sexism women of the time experienced, and it portrays the young housewife as a prisoner of her environment—the domestic domain to which she is confined. The poem also focuses on the objectification of women. Despite its social commentary, “The Young Housewife” is considered one of William Carlos Williams’s more vibrant poems.

Poet Biography

Born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1883, William Carlos Williams was the son of William George Williams and Raquel Helene Hoheb. Raised in a home filled with a heavy influence of Caribbean culture, William Carlos Williams spoke Spanish at home and did not speak English as his primary language until his teenage years. Williams attended primary and secondary school in Rutherford, New Jersey until 1897; he then went to the Lycée Condorcet school in Paris for two years. He eventually attended the Horace Mann School in New York City upon his return to the United States, and in 1902 he entered medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.