Wedding Wind Flashcards
What is the main theme?
Changing identity
What is there an extended metaphor of?
The extended metaphor of the pathetic fallacy of wind represents a change in identity
What imagery runs throughout the poem?
Destructive - to show that change/illusions of marriage can be distorted and cause unease
What AO3 can be linked?
Movement writers, focused on the domestic life, and Thomas Hardy
What can be inferred through ‘seeing my face in the twisted candlelight,/ Yet seeing nothing’?
Speaker feels awkward/ uncomfortable in her role in marriage. The candles perhaps symbolic romance (wedding night). The woman’s identity becomes distorted once married as she is no longer recognisable. The line break adds to her lack of reflection
What can be inferred through ‘I was sad/ That any man or beast that night should lack / The happiness I had.’?
Speaker acknowledges there is some happiness to have - change is perhaps unfamiliar and exciting. She has a new face she wears to the illusion as it makes her happy
What device is used in ‘Now in the day’?
Time marker - shows a shift forward in time. Structurally there is a change in perspective, it still a continuation of same marriage but she has realised the realities
What device is used in ‘All’s ravelled under the sun’?
Pathetic fallacy - now that time has passed, change in her identity is shown through imagery - ‘sun’ shows she has warmed up to the idea
What can be inferred through ‘I carry a chipped pail to the chicken-run / Set it down, and stare’ ?
Married life is characterised through a romantic / rural simplicity outlook
What device is used in ‘wind/ hunting through the clouds and forests’ ?
The wind is personified/pastoral imagery - still a part of her former identity, perhaps a deep and innate part of her wishes to return to past but she suppresses it
What device is used in ‘Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread/Carrying beads?
Simile - marriage is intricate, takes time, delicate, can be become beautiful. Hyperbolic language - state of bliss, environmental change
What can be inferred through ‘Now this perpetual morning shares my bed?’
Personifies memory like it is her lover - she cannot imagine experiencing anything other than this joy, love as nourishing
What device is used in ‘new delighted lakes’?
Metaphor for the vitality and joy of her new marriage. Love so powerful she wonders if death could end it
What can be inferred through ‘Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters’?
Sense of reality - holiness/idyllic scene as ‘kneeling’ has religious connotations, suggesting their love is almost holy. ‘all-generous’ - nourished by the simple love they share
What is significant about the female character being left feeling ‘stupid in candlelight’?
The image juxtaposes the conventional ideas of candlelight - romance and intimacy’. Instead she feels foolish and alone
