Poetic devices and their effects – form

(ballad, sonnet, free verse, dramatic monologue),

alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia,

Simile – “like the shut of a winters day” The simile here is used to bring about associations between what has happened to the girl and the gloom of winter. There is a sense of finality about what has happened to the girl. The idea of the end of winter is closely linked to the end of life. The verb shut also adds to the sense of something irreversible having happened to the girl. It seems that the girl was happy before the marriage took place and that in some way her happiness had been extinguished.

Dramatic monologue Shows the speaker’s raw emotions at the emotional distance from his wife

‘More like a frightened little fay.’ The shock of the marriage has brought about some fundamental change in the nature of the girl. A fay (or fey) is a term to describe a fairy. It introduces the idea that there is something ethereal about the girl and that she has returned to nature in some way.

Language and its effects – what sort of words

are in the poem? Violent, loving, colloquial, archaic,

semantic fields, diction, religious, romantic language

Semantic field of animals – mouse, birds and rabbits, hare

Stresses the importance of the world of nature to the wife – she is described in animal terms – she has an affinity with animals. Perhaps it stresses how she has more in common with the animals than her husband and she seeks solace in the natural world.

Colloquialism – ‘runned away’, ‘out ‘mong the sheep’ ‘fetched her home’

Gives the poem a homespun rural feel – we can see it is the world of farmers. There is a simplicity in the actions and reactions of the wife and the husband

‘When us was wed’ The past tense suggests the wedding is very much

in the past. In addition, the use of the pronoun we is used here and no where else. Suggests that very soon afterwards they started acting independently rather than as a couple.

Alternative interpretations – Can quotations

be read in two ways for different meanings?

‘More like a little frightened fay’ The comparison to a fairy suggests the wife perhaps has a supernatural affinity to nature and perhaps is very different to the world of humans – it also suggests that she is a very delicate and fragile creature

‘And turned the key upon her, fast’ Sense of entrapment – could be read as man’s control over woman or could be read as man’s control over unusual forces in society (madness)

‘Tis but a stair betwixt us’ The man has to come to a higher level of understanding in order to be with his wife OR There is a sense of divinity to the wife (Jacob’s ladder?)

Structure and its effects – tonal shifts, pace,

caesura, what rhyme stresses, beginning, middle, end,

repetition, dialogue and where it happens, enjambment

Caesura – ‘and turned the key upon her, fast’ Gives a strong sense of the key turning and trapping her. Sense of finality to the imprisonment – man’s desperate need to control what he doesn’t understand

Caesura - ‘Before our lanterns. To Church Town’ Builds suspense for the reader about what has happened to the wife, suggests a change and shift in movement .

Dialogue - ‘Not near, not near!’ Close to the centre of the poem, we finally get her voice – shows her desperation to be left alone. Fear of men is central.

Tone and its effects – talking about moods

which are evoked and where, narrative voice

‘She turned afraid of love and me and all things human’

Has a tone of desperation on the speaker’s part – regrets her decision and feels lonely – also has a tone of finality about it – stresses ‘all’

Tone - ‘But what to me?’ Rhetorical question dispirited tone. Suggests that the farmer is bereft and lacks understanding of what he has done – cannot fathom her actions

‘Oh! My God! The down, the soft young down of her’

Sensual tone – strong physical desire. Man is bewitched by her. Again links to her somewhat possible supernatural air

Imagery and its effects - metaphor, simile,

personification, visual sense

‘flying like a hare before our lanterns’ Sense of being hunted by men, who are desperate to find and control her.

‘like a mouse’ She is diminutive and meek. Practically invisible.

‘Look round like children at her call.’ Again, stresses her affinity with nature – they feel like her real family rather than her husband. Sense that they will never have children due to the distance between them. Could create a sense of pathos for the speaker

Context – authorial, social and historical Born in 1869, her life straddled the end of the 19th and start of 20th Centuries – a brother and sister were committed to mental institutes. She didn’t marry for fear she might transmit mental illness to any children she may have had. These themes become prominent in her poetry.

Written from a male perspective – it focuses on the female as an outcast – someone who isn’t understood and needs to be controlled. Could be a metaphor of how men and women don’t often truly understand each other’s nature. Although written from a male perspective, perhaps it shows her own loneliness due to her decision never to marry.