Wedding Wind Flashcards
What technique is the wind in the first sentence?
Pathetic fallacy
Explore the quote “high wind.”
- joining someone in wedlock leads to change/destructive identity.
- domesticity of marriage against everyday romance.
Explore the words “banging,” “restless,” and “rain.”
The illusions of marriage are presented to be somewhat destructive/uncomfortable/ unsettling.
Illusions of marriage are distorted.
Explore the quote “stupid in candlelight.”
Speaker feels embarrassed or awkward.
Symbolic of intimacy/romance in marriage.
Explore the quote “seeing my face in the twisted candlestick, yet I see nothing.”
Enjambment- empathic
Identity becomes distorted (‘twisted’). She can no longer recognise herself now that she is a married woman.
Explore the quote, “I was sad that any man or beast should lack the happiness I had.”
Speaker acknowledges the excitement that is also coming from her new identity/new chapter.
Explore the quote, “ Now in the day all’s ravelled under the sun.”
-Drop line
‘Now’- time marker to show time has moved on since the wedding night.
‘Sun’- instead of the speaker associating her new identity with the wind, she now feels a sense of perhaps contentment, joy, and warmth.
Explore the quote, “chipped pail to the chicken-run, set it down, stare.”
Marriage is characterised as an almost rural complicity.
Larkin is mocking the mundanity of married life.
AO3: ‘bloody hell.’
Society believes marriage life is altering.
Explore the words “wind,” “hunting,” and “thrashing.”
Personification of the wind.
Attempting to destroy her new identity (‘hunting’). Her old identity is trying to come back.
Explore the quote, “Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread carrying beads?”
Marriage is intricate and delicate.
It takes time to become beautiful yet possible.
Illusion to religious imagery- marriage is holy.
Explore the quote, “this perpetual morning shares my bed.”
Larkin is mocking her hyperbolic happiness- joy impacts the world around her.
The personification of ‘morning’ is as if it’s her lover. Questioning whether she is will ever go to sleep due to the continual intimate personal joy she feels.
Larkin is mocking this hyperbolic language.
AO3: Hardy esc language- Tess of the Durbabels- pastural imagery.
Explore the quote, “Can death even dry up these new delighted lakes,”
Her marriage is so strong that she questions whether death can touch her nourishing and joyful relationship (‘delightful’).
Explore the quote, “kneeling as cattle.”
Her marriage is idyllic, perhaps holy.
Larkin is mocking this idea.
AO3: “Religion is absolute balls.”
What is the scene in the first stanza?
Wedding day- uneasy and perhaps excited.
What is the scene in the second stanza?
The speaker settles into her marriage.
