The Inequality of Individuality

"The Art Of Response" by Audre Lord demonstrates the conflict between desired individuality and a society's reaction to that desire. In the context of many lines of this poem, that conflict seemingly exists between men and women, but in others the conflict falls elsewhere. Furthermore, to analyze each line by itself would go against what the poem is suggesting, which is that this fight for equality can be done by itself. The lines, if read individually, do not say anything important, but when read together with two or more lines, they are more easily interpreted, just as a battle for equality is stronger if more than one individual is involved. The opening lines of the poem, "The first answer was incorrect/the second was/sorry" (1-3) demonstrate this immediately, as do many lines following it. When read in the context of the time period (the feminist movement) these lines could be read as an interaction between a man and a woman, where the woman makes a statement (line 1), and, according to the poem's lines, that answer she gave wasn't the correct one (lines 1-2), nor was it ever the right one, as the feminists often felt. Within the same line, there is the implication of the said answer coming after the feminists' request for equality, rather than before. In this way, the "sorry" emphasized in the line could also mean "pathetic," which lends itself to the new conclusion that, if combined with the first line, the "second" does not refer back to an individual, but to the action instead, which is an answer in this case. The first answer was incorrect, and the second answer was just plain ridiculous, in the views of the feminists. They fought incessantly for their equality, and as the "sorry" indicates in this case, their fight was often thrown back in their face (viewed as being "pathetic").