A Wife In London

Question 1

Start quote (1)

Answer 1

‘She sits in the tawny vapour’ this illustrates that she is sat waiting for the return of her husband, and therefore feels isolated and cut off from society. Hardy uses pathetic fallacy by saying the tourney vapour, which was a smoke in industrialised London to reflect the wife’s loneliness.

Question 2

Start quote (2)

Answer 2

‘Like a waning taper’ this creates the image of a candle light going out, reflecting the wife’s loss of hope, and her spark

Question 3

Middle quote (1)

Answer 3

‘Flashed news in her hands’ this demonstrates how the message came, and went quickly create an image of a quick careless and impersonal interaction. It also indicates that there was a lot of other people who had news delivered to them about the loss of their loved ones.

Question 4

Middle quote (2)

Answer 4

‘He has fallen in the far South Land…’
The dashes reflects her struggle to process this information and convey her emotions. It creates imagery of the wife, crying and struggling to get the words out because the state of shock she’s in.

Question 5

End quote (1)

Answer 5

‘His hands, whom the worm now knows’ A gruesome detail to reference a persons body decomposing in the battle grounds, which suggests the lack of care

Question 6

End quote (2)

Answer 6

‘In the summer weather’ Hardy uses pathetic fallacy when the husband describes the joyous plans in his letter that they would proceed to do when he returned however, this contrasts with the description of the weather at the beginning of the poem, which contains detail about the smog and miserable weather

Question 7

Form/ structure

Answer 7

The rhyme scheme is regular to demonstrate that the tragedy is happening again, and again, and cannot be stopped. The rythm of the poem is not playful or upbeat, rather depressing and sad to reflect the grief of those who lost relatives during the Boer war lines 8 to 10 have long lines to show, it’s hard to grasp the news. Overall, the structure helps to show the time.

Question 8

Personal response

Answer 8

I think the poem is interesting since it captures the unseen side of war, where women go through the grief of receiving news that their loved ones lost their life during the battle