Jerry
Jerry - meaning Summary
Murder as Final Escape
The poem presents a first-person narrator who leaves factory work to marry a large, abusive iceman. After repeated domestic mistreatment and a violent assault that draws blood, she waits until he sleeps, shoots him, and is imprisoned for life. From prison she calmly asserts she would commit the act again, framing the killing as a decisive, unrepentant response to sustained abuse and desperation.
Read Complete AnalysesSix years I worked in a knitting mill at a machine And then I married Jerry, the iceman, for a change. He weighed 240 pounds, and could hold me, Who weighed 105 pounds, outward easily with one hand. He came home drunk and lay on me with the breath of stale beer Blowing from him and jumbled talk that didn't mean anything. I stood it two years and one hot night when I refused him And he struck his bare fist against my nose so it bled, I waited till he slept, took a revolver from a bureau drawer, Placed the end of it to his head and pulled the trigger. From the stone walls where I am incarcerated for the natural term Of life, I proclaim I would do it again.
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