Soeur de la Misericorde

Question 1

“Now dust and embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?”

Answer 1

Soeur de La Misericorde:
- Dust and ashes allude to the funeral service
- “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”
- Given her ageing body, the speaker realises that her desire is spent and irrelevant
- “Hired” indicates that she acknowledges that she has been commodified by her lover
- She questions the meaning of her life
- The temporary state of her as “hired” displays that her time on Earth is limited and she ultimately belongs to God

Question 2

“Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
Longing and love, a disenkindled fire.”

Answer 2

Soeur de La Misericorde:
- Two lines are syntactically identical
- The first is alliterative with plosives to suggest the harsh, hard reality of love
-Creates a tone of contempt, she is reflecting upon her regret
- The adjective, “disenkindled” is a purposeful invention by Rossetti, depicting her lingering affection for her former lover that tempts her despite her acknowledgment that she was itemised

Question 3

“Now from my heart, love’s deathbed, trickles, trickles,
Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,”

Answer 3

Soeur de La Misericorde:
- Indicates a soulful, deeper conflict
- Internal repetition and plosives, reflect a slow, tragic death
- Semantics of misery and despair
- The metaphorical “drops” reflect her upturned expectations - the drops imitate her fleeting fire of desire

Question 4

“Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,”

Answer 4

Soeur de La Misericorde:
- Allusion to the double sided nature of roses
- Roses associated with romance and beauty, not even the petals are left to bloom with love

Question 5

“Stunting my hope which might have strained up
higher,
Turning my garden plot to barren mire”

Answer 5

Soeur de La Misericorde:
- Allusion to the speakers orthopedic shoe, raising her higher yet causing her pain
- In the convent, she is stripped of all material belongings, left with the regret and lingering feelings from the past relationship
- “barren mire” displays her celibacy as a holy woman, links to her taken children”
- She is afflicted with an eternal struggle being distanced from her children
- “Hope”, has religious connotations, she fears she cannot strengthen her bonds with God due to her past actions
- “Stunting” and “Strained” are uncomfortable, limiting words, making her journey on earth uncomfortable and awkward
- “barren” echoes the previous image of a rose stripped of all life