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A wife in London by Thomas Hardy - Coggle Diagram
A wife in London by Thomas Hardy
Context
Historical
Written in response to the Boer war
British used concentration camps
25k Afrikaners starved
Total casualties of 60k people
Suspicious of the British Empire's methods
Source of pride vs Source of terror
Women were not noticed in Victorian times
Setting
Notable exception to Hardy's tradition of writing about wessex
Allows for pathetic fallacy of smog
London is political centre of the British Empire
Structure and form
Two distinct sections - each with two stanzas
Communication of Death
Communication of Hope
Chronological
Quick jump to next day - we do not see the wife's grief
The reader has to fill in the gaps
Points
Women's defining trait were their marital status
"A wife in London"
Anonymous - like the identity of the woman doesn't matter
"Like a waning taper, the street-lamp runs cold"
Her husband death has "put out" the chance of a good quality of life
People left at home were helpless
"She sits in the tawny vapour"
Passive verb emphasises how she cannot do anything without her husband - the relationship was so strong
"Behind whose webby fold on fold"
Adjective "webby" connotes the wife being trapped
Alliteration gives the fog an enveloping quality
War subverts all good things - including relationships
"And of new love that they would learn"
The new love that has to be learnt is the realisation that she has to love her husband in the past tense as a widow
"I. The Tragedy", "II. The Irony"
The splitting of the poem due to the events of war could correlate to her broken heart