A Wife in London Flashcards
Form:
2 parts, shows the way that her life changed completely and irrevocably because of his death
The speaker is an observer, detached tone subverts the visceral nature of grief. Inevitability due to war? Harsh message
Irregular rhythm and dashes (mimic the style of a telegram) crate pauses which shows wife’s lack of comprehension, focusses the reader’s attention on the wife’s plight and gives disjointed sense. Asymmetrical rhyme scheme (ABBAB) broken once ‘smartly’ and ‘shortly’ shows lack of comprehension.
Caesura slows place
Structure:
The wife learns of her husband’s death, then received a delayed letter from him about how he looks forward to the future. This exploits the sadness and the irony of the poem and shows how her life is irrevocably changed without him. Also the escalated repeated descriptions show the delayed onset of her grief and her eventual realisation
Reader has to wait till stanza 4 to get to know what was said in the letter
Titles - factual description enhance detached tone. Sense of inevitability and uneasiness.
New love right at the end is indicative of the tragedy, how the love was cut short and her happiness stood with the end-stop of the final line.
Language:
semantic field of sorrow and regret
Lots of pathetic fallacy- the fog creates a suffocating image and also delayed onset
Cold imagery symbolises corpse and cold narrator and cold loss of love and cold inhuman nature of war
Tawny vapour
Pathetic fallacy - she is yet in the dark
Like a warning taper
Simile causes anticipation
Glimmers cold
Chilling imagery
Hope dwindling
Semantic field of war
Cracks
Flashed
Dazes
He-has fallen-in
Euphemism , makes it less painful
Dashes cause reading to slow down, illustrates her trying to comprehend his death
The fog hands thicker
Metaphor - her own sadness is weighing her down and she feels trapped
Firelight flicker
Fricatives show the rarity of light
She is sitting in the dark, mourning
Fresh-firm-penned in highest feather
He was excited
She still can not comprehend how much she’ll miss him
Home-planned haunts by brake and burn
Juxtaposition, fond imagery followed by violent Lexis
Plosives are harsh
New love
Smack! Home run! Raw depression
Also are they having a child…?
Context
During the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, news of a British soldier’s death was sent by telegram, which was faster than normal post. Letters from the soldiers took longer to reach their families at home, as they were sent via normal post.
Irony
Language of future combined with optimistic tone increase pain
Pauses of ‘fresh’ , ‘firm’ focus on corporeal imagery - forcing us to pause and consider his youthful body contrasted with his corpse
