The Suspenseful Nature Of Obscurity In The Mill By Edwin Robinson

Edwin Robinson portrays the suspenseful nature of obscurity through his poem “The Mill.” He crafts a miller’s wife to be at odds if her husband had committed suicide. Her following actions establish two worlds of thought as to how the poem could be interpreted. The first stanza presents the tension of uncertainty the defines the poem. Robinson demonstrates how the wife had “waited” (1) so long that both the tea was “cold” (2) and the fire was “dead” (2). For both these events to occur, hours must have passed as the miller’s wife waited for her husband to return. The lack of his appearance leaves the wife to ponder his unusual statement in the morning as he pronounced that his profession as a miller had gone extinct. More importantly, he had

Due to the lack of transition between the first and second stanza, it is as if the miller’s wife had randomly decided to go search for her husband. Her timing of arriving “at last” (10) gives no insight into how she arrived at the mill. Either she had actually journeyed out to the mill or the suspense of the situation pushed her thoughts towards the possibility of her husband having committed suicide. In the mill, there is a warmth from the “fragrance of the past” (11) that contrasts with the cold tea and dead fire in the first stanza. That the possibility of suicide reaches new levels due to the apparent lack of life in the mill which only existed in the past now. Finally, the miller’s wife comes across her husband having hanged himself, leaving a sense of obscurity around the situation as the hanging object is described as not having “heeded” (16) her next destination.

Due to the apparent suicide of her husband, the miller’s wife decides to take her life as well, deciding to hide her actions under the “black water” (21). However, this scene can also be interpreted to be her thoughts as the inclusion of words such as “if” (17) and “may” (18) continue the theme of ambiguity in the poem. Similar to committing suicide in secrecy, coming back to reality from her thoughts would leave everything to “appear” (23) as if nothing ever happened. Thus, the profound obscurity of “The Mill” makes it nearly impossible for one to decide if it was real or an elaborate