A Wife in London Flashcards
(10 cards)
Context of Thomas Hardy
• Start of Boer War - 1899-1902
• He started as a novelist and then became a poet, lived in London for a period of time
• Subverts traditional war poems by focusing on the effect of war on lives of ordinary people away from the battlefield
• Common theme in Hardy’s poems - twist of fate impacts ordinary people
Summary of Poem
A woman in London receives a telegram informing her that her husband has died at war
The next day, she receives a letter from him, full of hope and future plans, creating painful irony
The poem focuses on the impact of war on those left at home
Form
Rhyme Scheme: ABBAB
The rhyme scheme is broken only once, reflecting the wife’s struggle to process the tragic news
Dashes create pauses, forcing the reader to focus on the tragedy
The speaker is an observer using a detached tone, presenting the wife’s grief as an inevitable fact of war
Structure
The poem is divided into two parts with titles - story like quality
Enjambment in the first stanza reflects the spreading of fog, symbolizing confusion and uncertainty
Ellipsis emphasizes the severity of the news
Caesura in lines 10 & 16 contrast life and death
Pathetic fallacy: As the poem progresses, the weather worsens, reflecting sorrow and grief
This contrasts with summer in the final lines
Language
Onomatopoeia: ‘Cracks’ heightens tension and a sense of foreboding.
Imagery of fog: Symbolizes pollution and death, as well as the wife’s emotional state.
‘A Wife’ – The indefinite article ‘A’ suggests that she is just one of many wives affected by war.
Images of light are presented as lacking warmth, symbolizing her husband’s life.
Mood
Loss: The wife’s grief is made more poignant by the ironic arrival of her husband’s letter
Hope: The husband’s content letter adds to the sorrow of grief, as it is filled with youthful optimism and excitement
Hardy uses the husband’s death to highlight the futility of war
Key Quotes
Like a waning taper
She sits in tawny vapour
Home planned jaunts by brake and burn
Like a waning taper
- Similie
- Alludes the fading away of life
- Burnt down candle foreshadows the hudbands life being cut short
- ‘waning’ loss of hope and love
- fragility of human life
She sits in tawny vapour
- Fog is yellow and thick - eerie scene
- Symbol of grief and confusion
- Stillness and no movement - making things unclear
- Imagery conveys dull atmospheres as she waits for bad news
- emotional and physical isolation
Home planned jaunts by brake and burn
- Alliteration evokes a romantic natural world that will never be
- Language of future plans and optimism - painful irony
- Playful excited tone constrast with reality of death
- Destroys personal dreams and futures
