A wife in London

Question 1

Themes

Answer 1

• Love and Relationship
• pain and suffering
• Death and Loss
• Effects of war

Question 2

Subject

Answer 2

• The first half of the poem writes about a wife who is sitting at home in London. She receives a telegram with news that her husband has been killed
• The second half of the poem represents the next day, she receives a letter that her husband wrote before he died. He says that we will come home soon and talks of his plans for the future

Question 3

Title - “A wife in London”

Answer 3

-“A wife” and the use of “she” gives the impression of a shared experience, it is not just this women but many that suffer alongside her

Question 4

Imagery - pathetic fallacy

Answer 4

-Hardy uses the weather to reflect emotions. He uses the first paragraph to foreshadow the wife’s grief
“glimmers cold”
“the fog hangs thicker” - more suffocating after his death

Question 5

Imagery - irony of weather used in the 2nd half

Answer 5

-sharpens the sense of loss

“summer weather” “hoped return”

Question 6

Language - onomatopeia - “knock cracks smartly”

Answer 6

has a violent harsh effect and very different to the empty, silent stanza before

Question 7

Language - sibilance - “shaped so shortly”

Answer 7

-softening

Question 8

Language - “He - has fallen - in the far South Land…”

Answer 8

• dashes slows down the poem while also reflecting the pauses as the wife tries to understand
• ellipses show the trailing off

Question 9

Language - “the postman nears and goes”

Answer 9

-shows the distance, detached as if in a trance

Question 10

Language - “his hand, whom the worm now knows”

Answer 10

• morbid and shocking play on the word hand

- highlights how poignant this death is

Question 11

Language - irony in the final stanza

Answer 11

-language of future plans and optimism creates a painful irony
“hoped return”
“home-planned jaunts”

Question 12

Tone

Answer 12

-loss and hopelessness
-the wife’s grief is anticipated from the start where it says 1 the tragedy
however it is made more poignant by the ironic arrival of the letter - highlights the futility of war, he was killed in his prime

Question 13

Structure - what person

Answer 13

-the speaker of the poem is an observer, not a singular experience, detached tone

Question 14

Structure - rhyme pattern

Answer 14

-mostly ABABAB but is half-broken with “smartly” and “shortly” reflecting the wife’s struggle to take in the news

Question 15

Structure - 2 part and repetition

Answer 15

-each has its own title which sets up the next part of the poem
“letter” repeated
“firefight flicker” - echoes street lamp from the first stanza