Question

What does “woman as gold as the river bottom” mean?

New Orleans by Joy Harjo

Answer 1

"Woman as gold as the river bottom" means:

An analysis of the combination of the suffering of the creek and the seek of gold in Desoto's that never succeeded.

Step-by-step explanation:

To understand this we need to understand that author and the background. First of all Joy Harjo was a Feminist, therefore it develops critics surrounding social gender roles in her works. In this poem and line, she develops an analysis of the ideal society has imposed to women and how it is impossible to find it because it was created in the imaginary, the suffering of women to fulfill that role, and the struggle society has as a cause of the creation of the ideal. Thus, it is a stylistic device to think about this phenomenon.

Answer 2

This short excerp from Joy Harjo´s poem " New Orleans", is a metaphor, which basically describes the futility of following impossible dreams or trying to achieve something that will never be yours or that simply,is out of your reach, no matter how stubborn you might be and no matter how much determination you have, you will never reach it, so dancing with a woman as gold as the river bottom also represnts the persistance of Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto who died trying to find and conquer a big empire as he had witnessed in Peru.