English Commentary: The Farmer’s Bride
In the poem “The Farmer’s Bride”, the poet Charlotte Mew explores the damaged relationship between a farmer and his bride. Mew uses specific diction, imagery and rhyme scheme to reveal the feelings of the Farmer towards his bride. Mew depicts the Farmer as the narrator and the integration of a broken rhyme and the use of grammar highlight’s the Farmer’s perspective and emotions .The rustic diction and grammar used develops the Farmer’s character and creates a tone of sorrow and longing. The use of animal imagery and similes create descriptive stanzas that evoke multiple feelings for the Farmer and the Bride. Mew intentionally does this to create mixed emotions of sympathy. By the end of the poem, the Farmer’s emotions and mental state have escalated to an infatuated and almost depressed state leaving the reader with a feeling of sympathy for the Farmer.
The poem’s first two stanzas are filled with selected diction and grammar to create the perfect introduction for such a sorrow filled piece. Initially, Mew depicts the Farmer as uncaring and regimented around work. “Too young maybe-but more’s to do At harvest-time than bide and woo”, even this simple sentence reveals much about the character; the Farmer clearly believes that the work to be done is more important than caring for the Bride. He is so enveloped in his work that he even integrates the times of the seasons as his way of telling time, “more’s to do At harvest time… One night, in the Fall”. After the Bride runs away, the Farmer uses words that almost describe her as an animal, “We chased her…We caught her, fetched her…turned the key upon her fast.” The Farmer however, clearly did love her in some way for he states “When us was wed she turned afraid Of love and me and all things human;” He notices the Brides reclusive behavior for he must have made some attempt to take an advance in love, for he clearly mentions “she turned afraid Of love” The use of grammar even reveals the Farmers feelings, “Too young maybe- but more’s to do” it is as though the Farmer cuts himself of in his train of thought. He begins to think that perhaps the Bride’s too young, but then he goes back to his thought of work and this outweighs any thoughts for the girls comfort, even though it is evident that he does care for her in some manner.
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The stanzas thereafter further develop the Farmer’s perspective and opinion for the Bride. The use of animal and rustic imagery only helps to further show the reader just how strong a desire the Farmer has for the Bride. “As well as most, but like a mouse: Happy enough to chat and play With birds and rabbits and such as they,” the Farmer is expressing his feelings regarding the Brides reclusiveness in an animalistic way; Mew’s use of animal imagery here helps to develop and make clear the dissatisfied feelings the Farmer is experiencing. “The women say that beasts in stall Look around like children at her call” Not only do animals react well with the Bride, she is also described as an animal through the use of similes. ”Shy as a leveret, swift as he, Straight and slight as a young larch tree, sweet as the first wild violets, she To her wild self.” Mew’s use of similes here has solidified the perception the reader would have of the Bride, this is the same perception the Farmer has of course as he is the narrator. The Bride clearly has been oppressed by the farmer and fear and this manifestation of fear has done irreversible damage to her psyche. She has now completely withdrawn from the Farmer and humans “she turned afraid Of…all things human… Happy enough to chat and play… So long as men-folk keep away.” This arouses a feeling of sympathy for the Farmer as he clearly notices her behavior and wishes it were not so, “beasts in stall Look round like children at her call. I’ve hardly heard her speak at all” According to the poem she is completely unable to express herself, however this may appear so because Mew has intentionally written the piece from the Farmers point of view and so the reader sees only what the Farmer sees.
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The remaining stanzas now focus only on the Farmers yearning for love and affection. The imagery, similes, grammar and repetition are now all combined to build up to a peak point where the only emphasis is that of loneliness for the farmer. A pattern is visible as the ends of three of the stanzas solely focused on the Bride, end in comments regarding the Farmers loneliness or yearning. “I’ve hardly heard her speak at all…To her wild self. But what to me?… What’s Christmas-time without there be Some other in the house than we!” The farmer has completely left the topic of work and is now solely fixated on his craving for a normal relationship with his bride. The repetition at the end of the stanzas regarding the Bride underlines his captivation to the dream of normality. The grammar itself even provides hints to build up of emotion, the first line regarding his desire ends in a full stop, the line from the next stanza ends in a question mark and the final line from the third stanza ends in an exclamation mark. It is as though Mew wished for the poem to build to this one point where the Farmers composure and control is completely lost and he is on the tipping point, until finally in the last stanza he is lost. She finally outlines the Farmers desperation in the penultimate stanza by creating a complete imagery of emptiness and loneliness
“The short days shorten and the oaks are brown, The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky, One leaf in the still air falls slowly down, A magpies spotted feathers lie On the black earth spread white with rime, The berries redden up to Christmas-time. What’s Christmas-time without there be Some other in the house than we!”
This entire stanza can be taken as a whole piece of evidence that the Farmer is now reaching the point of depression. The imagery here along with the use of colors creates a perfect of image of complete emptiness for the farmer. The days for the farmer are short and meaningless, the trees are dead in the winter, the birds are gone and there is no charm and there is complete inactivity, not even a breeze for “the still air”. The farmer is feeling so empty without love and a companion that even the most affectionate time of the year feels meaningless. The Farmers character has changed so dramatically from the beginning of the play that he has even stopped referring phases of the year from a farmer’s point of view; winter time has been replaced with “Christmas-time”. All that had matter to the farmer at first now has no meaning; everything is pointless without a family. His initial composure of his feelings, his calm demeanor and his unwavering concentration on work has now been shattered. Mew has integrated grammar to show this and she has gradually switched the focus of the stanzas from work to the Bride and work to only the Bride.
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The final stanza does not follow the pattern that the rest of the stanzas did; the pattern where each stanza would build to the next so as to gradually switch focus from work to the Bride and escalate to a climax. In this final stanza the Farmer is completely lost, he is entirely consumed by his manifesting infatuation and captivation and as a result he is portrayed as bordering insane. He loses the structure of his sentences which indicates a loss of composure “Oh! My God! The down, The soft young down of her, the brown, The Brown of her- her eyes, her hair, her hair!” The Farmer is now entirely lost in his desire and the initial statement of “no time to bide and woo” does not apply whatsoever. His longing is clearly apparent as he says that she is alone in the attic but they are only separated by a stair, yet it is as though he will never get what he wants even if it is only a room away. The disrupted sentence structure almost suggests that the Farmer is sobbing. He is now a broken man and the Bride is completely reclusive. With this as the closing scene and the last line that the reader is left with, the final image and the end emotion that this poem evokes is that of complete and utter sorrow and sympathy for the Farmer. And so it is that Mew has created an entire complex character and in the course of a poem, through the use of basic poetic devices, she has managed to completely change and reconstruct the character so that by the end the Farmer is no longer recognizable as the man in the first stanza. He is no longer strong and regimented about work; he is completely lost and is neither with his work nor his wife. He is lost somewhere in between. The reader is left utterly lost for words at the sad and hopeless predicament of the Farmer. Not only is he stripped of his love and normal life but his also stripped of his personality and character. He is completely empty and has nothing.
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