The Dead Woman
The Dead Woman - meaning Summary
Survival Through Shared Suffering
The speaker addresses a beloved and insists they will continue living even if the beloved dies. This survival is framed not as detached endurance but as solidarity: the speaker’s voice must exist where others are silenced, joining the imprisoned and the beaten. The poem links personal loss to collective struggle, claiming responsibility to witness and speak for common victory. It ends with a tense, intimate plea for forgiveness for that claim to life.
Read Complete AnalysesIf suddenly you do not exist, if suddenly you are not living, I shall go on living. I do not dare, I do not dare to write it, if you die. I shall go on living. Because where a man has no voice, there, my voice Where blacks are beaten, I can not be dead. When my brothers go to jail I shall go with them. When victory, not my victory, but the great victory arrives, even though I am mute I must speak: I shall see it come even though I am blind. No, forgive me, if you are not living, if you, beloved, my love, if you have died.
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