literary criticism
historical-biographical approach
Elisavietta Ritchie admits that "["Sorting Laundry"] is indeed autobiographical." At the time of the poem, Ritchie was "still [inhabiting] that strange terrain between marriages." "Sorting Laundry" was a poem written about her relationship with Clyde Farnsworth, the then New York Times correspondent whom Ritchie ends up marrying. Ritchie wrote the poem, however, when Clyde was "very much a part of [her] life, but [she] hardly felt secure." Their relationship lacked stability due to the nature of his job, the "highly competitive females [...] stalking the social and political scene in Washington and New York," and a few of Ritchie's own skeletons hiding the closet, as she describes it. In fact, "the strangely tailored shirt left by a former love" in "Sorting Laundry" comes straight from Ritchie's experience with the journalist. He also brought Ritchie a gold chain from Kuwait while on his way to covering a story in the Middle East; she wore it for over 20 years until "a stranger pocketed the gold chain" months ago. A few years passed before they were married (he forgot to buy a ring, so Ritchie wears her mother's on her right hand as it is too big for her left). What has come out of the laundry? Ritchie answers her own question with "two strong creative people [who] naturally compete [and] very much support each other's artistic activities[.]"
feminist approach
Women have long been expected to be responsible for domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry. "Sorting Laundry" maintains this position in that it is indeed the woman who washes the clothes. Ritchie's take? "Men have to wash their socks too. Or should. The difference is, they get congratulated for such tasks, women are expected to do them in the normal course of the day (or night) without mention." Females are portrayed in a inferior light when they are confined to the domestic sphere. The female narrator of "Sorting Laundry" also poses the hypothetical situation to her beloved "If you were to leave me," furthering the conception that men have the power to leave and women are weak and subject to these whims.
Ritchie lightly admits that "it is still usually [she] who [tosses] in and [hangs] out the wash... in decent weather, on the clothesline above an inlet where frogs mate and terrapins and snapping turtles come ashore to lay their eggs."
