A Wife In London (Thomas Hardy) Flashcards
“She sits in the tawny vapour”
setting = thick London fog → emotional obscurity
• “tawny” = sickly, unnatural tone → foreshadows death
• passive verb “sits” = helpless, grief-stricken stillness
• fog = metaphor for confusion, fate closing in
begins with an atmosphere of tension and gloom to mirror the wife’s emotional paralysis.
“Behind whose webby fold on fold”
• extended metaphor = fog as spider’s web → fate trapping her
• repetition “fold on fold” = layered grief, growing dread
• “webby” = fragile yet fatal → inescapable emotional entanglement
grief is already tightening around the wife before she even receives the news.
“Like a waning taper / The street-lamp glimmers cold.”
• simile = candle → fading life, symbolic of death
• “waning” = decline, inevitable extinguishing
• oxymoron “glimmers cold” = false hope, emotional sterility
• light imagery = drained of warmth, spiritual death
dimming light as a symbol of life and love quietly fading into absence.
“He — has fallen — in the far South Land…”
• euphemism “fallen” = emotional detachment, Victorian restraint
• dashes = fragmented syntax, mimic emotional shock
• “far South Land” = physical + emotional disconnection
• ellipsis = ongoing grief, unresolved pain
delivers the soldier’s death with blunt impersonality, highlighting the coldness of wartime loss.
“’Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,”
• archaic tone = poetic fatalism, inescapable grief
• pathetic fallacy = fog = emotional heaviness
• thickening fog = intensifying mourning, lack of clarity
how grief does not lift after death—it only grows heavier, consuming the world around her.
“By the firelight flicker / His hand, whom the worm now knows:”
domestic warmth “firelight” = illusion of comfort
• “worm” = grotesque image of decay, physical reality of death
• juxtaposition = tender love vs brutal decomposition
• alliteration = soft rhythm undermined by horror
contrasts comfort with decay, forcing the reader to confront the physical aftermath of death.
“fresh – firm – penned in highest feather –”
• alliteration = energetic, proud tone
• “highest feather” = elegant, hopeful presentation
• dashes = tonal fragmentation, ironic tension
• dramatic irony = reader knows he is already dead
contrasts vitality in the soldier’s letter with the tragic truth, intensifying emotional impact.
“And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn”
• pastoral imagery = innocence, imagined escape
• “jaunts” = carefree, light-hearted tone
• alliteration = gentle rhythm, sense of peace
• romantic nostalgia destroyed by reality
how war doesn’t just end lives—it erases the everyday joys and futures they planned together.
“And of new love that they would learn.”
future tense = tragic irony → love that will never happen
• “new love” = emotional healing + hope now lost
• gentle cadence = soft dream tone, deeply tragic
Hardy ends with cruel irony—love’s renewal imagined by the dead, never to be realised.
Title: A Wife in London
Wife” = domestic, intimate role → focus on private emotional suffering
• “in London” = urban isolation, impersonal setting
• anonymity = not named → universal grief, everywoman figure
• contrast between home + distant battlefield
Hardy uses the title to highlight how war affects ordinary, unseen lives far from the battlefield.
Structure & Form
• split into 2 sections: “The Tragedy” + “The Irony” → shift in tone + perspective
• ballad-like quatrains = traditional form clashes with brutal content
• regular rhyme (ABAB) = false sense of order → reflects emotional repression
• enjambment + caesura = broken thoughts, emotional disruption
contrast the chaos of grief, mirroring how social norms restrict expression.
Context
written 1899 during Second Boer War → soldiers dying far from home
• Victorian mourning culture = formal, euphemistic treatment of death
• Hardy = realist + critic of war’s emotional cost
• poem reflects impact on women left behind, not just soldiers
Themes
Grief and Loss
• War and its domestic impact
• Death and physical decay
• Irony and unfulfilled hope
• Communication and emotional distance
• Fate and inevitability
