Her Husband - Literary Criticism

648 Words3 Pages
In this poem, Ted Hughes writes about the difficult situation of a married couple that is created because of the stress caused by work. He returns home from work and beats his wife, to show her how much he suffers to gain money. However, the wife still hopes that there will be a day when women will be heard and they will have their rights. The poem is made up of 5 stanzas with 4 verses each. The verses vary in length and often times we find enjambments, even from one stanza to another. The rhythm is fast, due to the lack of punctuation, making the reader feel what the wife is feeling; exhaustion from the continuous ill-treatment from her husband and never-ending tension. The diction the poet’s uses is rather dull, unpleasant and complicated. This portrays the horrible circumstances that they were in because of their complicated marriage. Words like “dull”, “dust” and “sweat” all illustrate how depressed and tough their life is. These gloomy adjectives used, makes the reader imagine the miserable state of the wife, married to an abusive man. With the wise choice of words, we get the picture that the man suffered to earn a living, however now the women is enduring pain as a result of his frustration. The lack of rhyme in this poem is also poem; reflecting the monotony of their life. From the beginning of the poem we realize that the situation is not pleasant; this is shown by the alliteration of the harsh consonant ‘d’. In fact, the diction it itself sounds harsh and shows cruelness that the whole poem portrays. Various figures of speech are found throughout the poem. Metaphors are used to make an emphasis on the hard work of the man, and the suffering of his wife. Money is personified and it’s described as having a “stubborn character”, and this makes us aware how the money the man is trying to obtain, is not so easy to come after all. Another metaphor is used to

More about Her Husband - Literary Criticism

Open Document