The monologues of the two Biblical characters are meant, in Marianne’s Moore “Marriage”, to show the poets opinion about what “this institution” (Marianne Moore, 62) means to the parties involved in it. They show the points of view of both man and woman on whether “the ritual of marriage” (Marianne Moore, 65) is a construction “with ways out but no way in” (M. M., 65) or if it is “the strange experience of beauty” (M.M., 63). It is actually a debate on the reason why a relationship requires “public promises of one’s intention to fulfill a private obligation” (M. M., 62).

In the dictionary, under the article for “marriage” we find out that it is “the relationship between two people who are husband and wife” but we are not told anything about the obligations or rights that the two people involved in this relationship have. Not even psychology can explain the nature of this relationship. There is no mention of how freedom and commitment are joined together in this “ritual” (M.M., 65). However, the poet tells us that actually “the essence of the matter” (M.M., 70) is to know how to join “liberty and union now and forever” (M.M., 70). It has always been said that the opposites attract and Marianne Moore is the one that takes this and forms a definition of marriage starting from here and calling it “striking grasp of opposites” (M.M., 69).

The poet tells us even from the first line of the poem that marriage is an “institution” (M.M.,62), an “important tradition on which society is based” (Macmillan dictionary, 744), but already in the second line she calls it “enterprise” (M.M., 62), free enterprise one could call it because this meaning about the relationship between the two is more likely to be accepted; it is like a “free system in which the two parties can complete without being controlled” (Macmillan dictionary, 461). What is important is that this competition doesn’t go out of the normal boundaries because in this case the foundation of the relationship will be destroyed.

What strikes the reader is that the poet doesn’t analyze the theme of marriage under the aspect of love, as one might expect from the title. Love is not the one that unites a man and a woman in a relationship. She doesn’t build her analyze on the bases of love because “everything to do with love is a mystery” (M.M., 69), it is a “science” (M.M., 69). The poet states clearly that the “Occidentals are unemotional” (M.M., 67). In the poem love appears as a destructive feeling. Love creates narcissistic attitudes that in the end will lead to the damage of the relationship because “he loves himself so much he can permit himself no rival in that love” (M.M., 68). T. S. Eliot says that “The first aspect in which Marianne Moore’s poetry is likely to strike the reader is that of minute detail rather than emotional unity”.

Marriage is presented from the very beginning in a paradoxical way. Even if it’s meant to be a private relationship, the ritual of marriage has a public manifestation that puts the man and the woman in front of the whole world to make “public promises” (M.M., 62). In this way the feelings of the two are exposed to the public eye that kills any trace of intimacy. This situation was actually caused by “the central flaw” (M.M., 63), “that invaluable accident exonerating Adam” (M.M., 63). So in a way the one responsible is Eve. And this can be seen also in the

number of lines that each have: Adam has three lines, while Eve has only two. Actually these monologues of the Biblical couple can be seen as the lines of two actors on a stage, debating on the importance of marriage, almost quarrelling about who is more important in a relationship.

The one that explains the entire context, that exposes the theme of the debate, that catalogues pain and confusion in the metavoice, the all-seeing eye of the text in an impersonal manner gives as a perspective upon things.

From the monologues of the two we can see that actually the problem consists of the fact that the woman is trying to gain her independence, this being her central flaw in the ritual of marriage, just like the central flaw of the biblical Eve was tasting the apple. This attempt to gain her freedom can be understood from Adam’s use of the term “space”. Eve replies to this by accusing men of being “monopolists of stars, garters, buttons and other shining baubles” (M.M., 67), so they are only interested in the material aspect of life, which obviously makes them “unfit to be the guardians of another person’s happiness” (M.M., 67). The fact that they only take interest in the material is proved by Adam’s first line “What monarch would not blush to have a wife with hair like a shaving-brush” (M.M., 67), this proving the impossibility of man to look beyond the appearance. They are only able of judging the book by its cover without understanding its substance first.

It is interesting to see the symbolism of each of the terms Adam and Eve use to describe each other. Adam says that “a wife is a coffin” (M. M., 67). Freud’s student, Jung, makes a correlation between the coffin and the feminine archetype. He shows that the coffin is a place of security, growth, the place where the metamorphosis of the body into spirit takes place. Eve, on the other hand, says that the man is a butterfly. This is the symbol of instability and imponderability.

The other exponents of the man and woman in Marianne Moore’s poem are Hercules and Diana. The image of the goddess is presented in a dark light. She was the goddess of hunt, the guardian of springs, the goddess of the moon, “symbol of the feminine principle, showing her power of giving life” (Jean Chevalier, Alain Gheerbrant, 244). And yet she is presented in a black perspective and that is because she is a woman. The color here can be connected to the frequent use of the term “poison” in the poem. Hercules dies poisoned by the garment his wife made and here we can see exactly the destructive role of love, because Deianira, Hercules wife, poured the centaur’s blood on the shirt of her husband in order to transform it in a love charm that will make him love her even more. And he ends up dead because of the love charm. The link between the poison and the black color is obvious, both terms being closely connected to death. Again Marianne Moore shows the negative aspects of the intensity of a feeling that leads only to destruction and final extinction.

Hercules says: “it clothes me with a shirt of fire” (M.M., 65). The role of the fire in this case is a purifying one (Jean Chevalier, Alain Gheerbrant, 63). It cleans man of all the human

flaws and leaves the pure soul. Actually, here the shirt on fire is meant “to extinguish” (M.M., 65) another fire, the one of narcissism, it tries to erase the “joy in seeing that he has become an idol” (M.M., 64), because this is what makes him “stumble over marriage” (M.M., 65) and at the same time it makes him consider it “a very trivial object indeed” (M.M., 65).

Marriage is supposed to be the ultimate proof of love and respect. And yet independence and commitment represent a state very hard to achieve. Marianne Moore tries to show throughout the poem that it is more important to be tolerant in a relationship that to criticize the other for being too interested in one’s freedom. The ideal would be, as Daniel Webster said, to be able to join “liberty and union now and forever” (M.M., 70).

Bibliography:

1. Jean Chevalier, Alain Gheerbrant, Dictionary of symbols. Artemis, 19952. Microsoft Encarta 1999 Encyclopedia3. Marianne Moore, Complete poems. Farber & Farber, London, 19904. Macmillan dictionary for advanced learners. Macmillan Publishers

Limited, 20045. www. English.uiuc.edu – excerpts from “Introduction to selected

poems” T.S. Eliot’s preface to selected poems by Marianne Moore (New York: Macmillan company, 1935; London, Farber & Farber, Ltd.)

Marianne Moore

“Marriage”

Marriage as a major theme with Marianne Moore

Constantin Cristina

Second year

Romanian – English

Anii de studiu 2003-2007