A Triad

Question 1

Title

Answer 1

biblical allusion to the trinity?
3 stereotypes - each are described in accordance with society’s perceptions of them

Question 2

‘lips Crimson,…cheeks and bosom…yellow hair…fingertips’

Answer 2

referred to simply by her various body parts - overly sexualised by society /through the male gaze

Question 3

‘soft & smooth as snow’

Answer 3

sibilance highlights docile nature
simile - purity & virginal nature - possible frigidity
This is the embodiment of the fragile feminine figure of the Victorian period

Question 4

bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show’

Answer 4

trophy wife - on display - no character beyond being a material object for her husband
tinted = artificial, forced to look her ‘best’

Question 5

blue with famine after love

Answer 5

famine- widowed?
- points to vic belief that women needed love to survive - women reliant on love (through marriage) whether real or artificial to provide for themselves

Question 6

like a harp string snapped rang harsh and low

Answer 6

snapped - abrupt, harsh
life & potential cut short

Question 7

‘one droned in sweetness like a fattened bee’

Answer 7

• bee - Queen bee - purpose is merely to reproduce
• droned - sluggish & mindless, perpetuating boredom - lack of opportunity or mobility for women

Question 8

All on the threshold, yet all short of life’

Answer 8

threshold - incomplete journey/pathway - collective failure to become the ‘ideal’ woman