“An Obstacle”

• Originally Published: 1884
• Form/Meter: Narrative poem of 8 sestets; regular rhyme scheme (ABCBDB)
• Literary Devices: Personification; allusion
• Setting: Natural setting
• Central Concern: In this parable, the speaker walks briskly up a mountain path until her way is blocked by a Prejudice that appears immovable. After trying many tactics to move the Prejudice, the speaker realizes that it can be overcome by walking right through it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Poet

• Bio: 1860-1935; born in Hartford, Connecticut; was a feminist, social reformer, and theorist of the women’s movement; wrote poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama; toured the United States giving lectures on women’s rights and other issues; is best known for her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which was based on her experience of postpartum psychosis; believed in euthanasia and died by suicide after living several years with incurable breast cancer
• Other Works: “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892); In This Our World (poetry collection; 1893); Women and Economics (1898); Herland (1915); The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography (1935)

THEMES   

• Overcoming Prejudice
• The Many Talents of Women
• Taking Inspiration From Nature