Sister Maude and Brothers

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Comparative essay on Sister Maude and Brothers In this comparative essay, I am going to explore the poems Brothers and Sister Maude. Both poems are about siblings and their relationship with one another. However there are many differences within the poem which I will explore later in this comparative essay. Sister Maude describes how Maude was jealous of her sister therefore told her parents of her sister’s lover – resulting in his death. The poem is written from the point of view of the betrayed sister, left alone without her loved one. So we are told of her anger and rollo-coaster of emotions as she comes to terms with the devastation her sister has caused. The speaker states that even if she ‘had not been born at all He’d never have looked at’ Maude, hinting that it was Maude’s jealously which lead her to snitch on her sister. The first stanza shows a lot of outrage that the speaker feels towards Maude. It is opened with a rhetorical question, ‘Who told my mother of my shame, who told my father of my dear?’ This shows that the poem is a direct curse towards her sister Maude and has an intended audience. Also the repetition of “Who” in the first stanza almost represents a tantrum that the speaker feels as she knows the answer. Moreover the speaker uses a caesura to reflect the speaker's outrage and anger that “Maude, my sister Maude" could have deliberately caused such a tragedy. The repetition of "Maude" also adds to the strength of thespeaker’s feelings. The speaker refers to her lover in the second stanza a lot. She uses a lot of alliteration to describe his body. For example, ‘cold’, ‘clotted curls’, and ‘comeliest corpse’. The repetition of the “c” reflects the hard sound of her echoing outbursts of frustration and hurt. Sister Maude describes the anger that sister feel towards one another. The speaker says to Maude, ‘Bide you with death and sin’.
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