Analysis Of The River-Merchant's Wife

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People often underestimate the importance of the things they have until they no longer own them. The speaker in The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter is a young married girl who recalls her lonely younger days and her regrets of not spending enough time with him, now that her husband goes away. The poem is melancholy, beautiful, and pleading. Throughout the poem, the longing of the wife for the return of her husband is sorrowful and miserable.
While the original poet of the poem, Li Po, writes it with proper poetic form, Pound uses a different tactic to align with the context of the poem. Written in free verse, the poem feels more genuine as if it is a real letter written by the wife to her husband. Consistent patterns of meter, rhyme, and other musical patterns are not applied by Pound into the poem. The flow of the poem follows the rhythm of a natural speech. The lack of prescribed meter allows Pound to bring out the rawness of the emotions of the wife, drawing the reader directly into her loneliness without having to overcome the barrier of an overly structured presentation. In the midst of longer sentences, the two short ones with one-syllable words draw significant attention to the emotional impact that the nature has on the speaker. When writing about the changing season, the falling leaves and the paired butterflies, the speaker remarks, “They hurt me. I grow older” (Pound). These short sentences capture the attention of the reader as the poem reaches its climax in which the wife acknowledges her deep sorrow for the long absence of her husband. By not following the rigid form of poetry, Pound allows the reader to feel the sorrowful emotions of the wife.
The images of natural environment and wildlife livings put an emphasis o...

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...te she must be just to see her beloved husband. Thus, the poetic devices are extremely appropriate and effective to illustrate the longing of the wife.
Pound successfully uses various techniques in The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter to exude the longing and solitude of the speaker. Reader can understand and relate to the poignant emotions of the speaker through the informal structure of the poem, the natural world and several poetic devices. The wife learns the importance of her husband’s existence, and regrets the past moments in which she spent detesting him instead of loving him. It is perhaps too late to express her love for him as it is unknown of when he will be back. The poem urges the reader to reflect back to their life and not to undervalue the important things in their life, even if it is a little thing, as they will possibly lament its absence later.

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