A Wife in London : Poem Anthology

“1 - The..”

“Tragedy”

The poem is separated into two parts : before and after recieving the letter

Shows how her life will change before and after him

Shows how they are now separated

Foreshadows to the reader something else must occur

“Webby fold on…”

“Fold like a waning taper.”

Pathetic fallacy and claustrophobic language

Creates imagery of the spiders web

Suggests the woman feels trapped without him

Her loss is intertwined with all aspects of her life

Simile = burnt candle foreshadows how her husbands death is cut short

Representative of how the light in her life has been blown out

“He- has fallen-…”

“In the far South Land.”

Use of elipsis and dashes to represent her distraught emotion

She is unable to even piece together a full sentence

She can not comprehend the loss

Uses fallen rather than death to show she does not want to accept the fact that he died

Far South Land shows the physical distance between them

They were not with each other at the time of death

“His hand, whom..”

“The worm now knows.”

Morbid imagery of the deceased body decomposing in the ground

Mimics the thoughts and curiosity she feels toward her husbands death

The line is blunt and clear

She is beginning to accept that he is dead and no longer sugarcoating it within her mind

The line is almost comical highlighting the irony felt upon receiving the letter

“And of new..”

“Love that they would learn”

The words new love are ambiguous but the poem concludes with hope for renewal through love

It shows us how the speaker will prevail despite the loss

Their love will heal her

Encapsulates a sense of waste and loss

Structure

Enjambment is used to show the flow of emotions following recieveing the letter.

It creates a transformation from grief to irony.

Repition is used to emphasise her husband as the subject, but the lack of identity makes the story applicable to many

Caesura within certain lines used to contrast each other - used in line 10 to represent the death and line 16 relating to the irony.

Rhyming scheme (ABBAB) creates regularity juxtaposing with the uncertainty that the poem exudes.