The Farmer's bride 👰♀️🧑🌾 Flashcards
What is the form of the farmer’s bride?
- The farmer’s bride is written in a monologue, and mostly in iambic tetrameter which gives the poem a strong rhythm, driving the poem further.
- ; the use of the poem written in iambic tetrameter, also gives the poem a sing-song rhythm similar to a song or ballad. [although it’s occasionally broken + then replaced with a trochaic foot at the beginning of a line]
- the lack of formal structure, coupled with single end-rhyme builds on to the poems’ simplistic nature.
What can you tell me about the irregularity of the rhyming in the Farmer’s bride?
- the poem has no rhyme scheme as it alternates bewteen: ABBA, AAAA, alternate rhyme, tercets, and rhyming couples couplets which ultimtately reflects the simplistic, emotionally unitelligent and uneducated nature of the farmer.
- ; Mew’s use of an irregular rhyme could also highlight that regardless of how much the farmer tries, his ‘bride’ will never be his wife
What can you tell me about the title of ’The farmer’s bride’ ?
- the speaker of the poem is the farmer, not his bride which is significant because we don’t see the bride’s perspective
C= which reflects the patriarchal culture in which men had dominance and power.
- Moreover, she isn’t given a name since in the exchange of marriage, she has been reduced to object. The lack of the bride’s name also reflects how she is denied subjectivity as he possesses her.
‘Three summers since I chose a maid’ ‘Too young maybe-‘
- they are not well matched because of the age difference- she is too young, perhaps she is a minor?
L= ‘chose’- verb suggests the farmer has the power and control. She has no choice and is objectified.
‘Like the shut of a winter’s day’
- L= simile- elicits the speed at which she became unhappy. [this is a coping mechanism for her]
- D= But on a deeper level, she has changed emotionally and has emotionally shut down, becoming emotionally cold.
‘little frightened fay.’
- ‘fay’ means fairy and by describing the bride as a ‘little’ frightened day connotes an image of her vulnerability, dehumanising her.
- Furthermore, it communicates the farmer’s feelings that she doesn’t belong in this world.
‘We caught her’ ‘We chased her, flying like a hare’
- L= verbs- ‘chased’ and ‘caught’- gives an impression that she is viewed as an animal, that the farmer has ownership of, like one of his animals. He hunts her to catch, possess and to control her.
L= simile- by comparing her to a hare, perhaps the farmer sees her as a wild and feral animal that needs to be domesticated.
I= Alternatively, by comparing her to a hare it could emphasise the speed at which she runs away from her husband and the farm workers.
‘All in a shiver and a scare’
L= alliteration- emphasises her fear of men.
‘I’ve hardly ever heard her speak at all’
- the married couple don’t communicate.
- C= this is contextually important because it reflects how Mew was opposed to marriage. Perhaps it was because she was unconventional + had a fear or being controlled, just like the farmer’s bride in the poem or because she vowed never to marry…
- since she and her sister Anne were afraid of passing on mental health issues/mental illness since two of her siblings suffered from mental illness, and were committed to asylums.
- although she is not unconventional [like Mew] she’s afraid of the control and power the men have over her since eyes ‘beseech’.
L= This verb suggests her desperation for the speaker to stay away from her, reinforcing her fear because she is an inexperienced, virginal bride who is terrified of having a sexual relationship with a man whom she barely knows.
R= the reader would feel sympathy for her, as she doesn’t communicate her fear by voicing them, but by showing the fear through her eyes.
- She’s afraid of them, since they’ve hunted her down + her husband has now incarcerated her in the farm + is/has now lost her freedom/devoid of any freedom.
‘but like a mouse’
L= similie- suggests she is shy and timid because a mice is associated with being shy and timid.
‘Sweet as the first wild violets’
L/D= the use of a similie places emphasise on what happens to wild violets after you’ve picked them.
- Wild flowers wilt when plucked from their natural environment, reflecting how like the violets, she has been taken from her environment and a part of her has died inside.
‘Tis but a stair Betwixt us’
- it’s significant that she sleeps in the attic, because she wants to be as far away from the speaker as possible.
- the speaker mentions there is only a stair between them, because physically there is physically only a stair between them, but emotionally the separation between the two is far greater, yet the speaker can not fathom why due to his lack of emotional intelligence.
D= the emotional distance in their ‘relationship’, is due to a lack of communication.
What is the meaning of the Farmer’s bride?
- a husband who abuses his power over his wife
- an inexperienced, virginal bride who is terrified of having a sexual relationship with a man, whom she barely knows.
- the sadness of her husband who wants a relationship with his wife, but doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to understand her.
What is the message of the Farmer’s bride?
- there are clearly negative consequences for both husband and wide, of an arranged marriage that is unconsummated
