05.05 Assignment

  At the time this poem was written, people married at incredibly young ages. This poem tells a story of a young woman who was married at the awkward age that is fourteen. ​You can see examples of this in the poem in stanza two, lines 7:

 

At fourteen I married My Lord you,

 

  They got married at the age of fourteen. She did not have a choice or say in who/when she were to be wed. Her parents forced her to get marry another fourteen year old boy, one she did not love. The parents practically shoved her into adulthood before she was ready. It is like a mama bird kicking its babies out of the nest before they are ready. What is interesting about this line is you would think 'Lord' meant God, but it actually is referring to her husband. "Lord" suggests that the husband fits into the status of the noble while the wife is simply a vassal. In modern terms, this means the husband is the boss and the wife does everything/anything he wants her to do. You can tell she is awkward or miserable by lines eight through ten on stanza two:

 

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times,

I never looked back.

 

  You can see she is shy (or awkward) in the first line because she is bashful and bashful is meaning shy. Plus, all she does is look at the wall and not even look at her husband in the eye. Therefore, conveying that it makes her a bit awkward. Young years, such as fourteen, are the start of our awkward years. Another way you could look at this is the wife is resisting her marriage, by ignoring her husband. So, this is not like the fairy tales or Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. However, if you look on stanza three, lines eleven through fourteen:

 

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

 

  After have been married for a year, she has grown to accept the arranged marriage situation. In addition, to that she has to her husband's every demand and desire. Remember this is back then; women did not even have the right to vote. Women were more property rather than a significant other.

 

 

 So, in conclusion, this poem is about how a young, teenage girl was unhappily married by the age of fourteen. During the poem, she expresses her depression throughout the poem. The wife did not want to marry the man from the beginning and she despised how she had to wait hand and foot on him. Especially, due to the fact, that she did not even love the man. Lastly and most importantly, due to the time period and men owned the women they married, the women never got to live life the way they wanted.