Hazel Tells Laverne by Katharyn Howd Machan

Hazel Tells Laverne by Katharyn Howd Machan

The first thing that can be picked up while reading this poem is how Machan tries to accent the dialect of her people through her mis-spellings. When writing a sentence that means, "and I hit him with my mop," she writes it as, "an i hitsm with my mop" (Machan). This is one of the tools she uses to help give an idea of where the narrator comes from. Also, we learn from the description of her work that she cleans the bathrooms of a whole-in-the-wall motel called Howard Johnson. It is this background on our narrator that ties into why she reacts the way she does upon seeing the talking frog. Her flushing of the frog gives an idea of most poor middle-colored workers psyches. For them, their lives are mostly simple and lack wistful thinking. Every day they work a hards day work and are crass to those ridiculous hopeful wishes that most privileged people dream. Its as if her life has been through so many hardships and she has been beaten down so much, that she has grown cynical to life. She is completely shocked by the talking frog, but what sticks out to her more is his inclination that she would become a princess. She says, "me, a princess". This last part of the poem has an air of cynical skepticism that she realizes that never through the course of time could she become a princess.