Theme Of Betrayal In A Prince's Progress

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This is also seen in Rossetti’s A Prince’s Progress as this narrative poem depicts marriage as the end goal in the bride’ life, as when she is betrayed by the Prince she dies, albeit in her old age. The prince falls in love with a maid in the absence of his bride, they lie in the ‘apple-tree shade’ and it is thus clear from the outset that the Prince and the Bride’s relationship is doomed as the apple tree has become a key motif of downfall and betrayal throughout Rossetti’s poetry, notably in Goblin Market, An Apple Gathering, and this A Prince’s Progress. The ‘shade’ of the apple-tree suggests that temptation casts a shadow over all people, and perhaps all couples at certain moments in their relationships, however it is up to them to overcome it. In Goblin Market, we see Laura eventually freed from her temptation, …show more content…

In this poem, Rossetti paints a picture of betrayal as in A Prince’s Progress, and similarly we see the symbol of the apple tree representative of a treacherous lover: ‘I counted rosiest apples on the earth, of far less worth than love’. Here Rossetti laments the speaker’s loss by condemning the greed and overindulgence of those picking the apples and equating them with Adam and Eve’s betrayal of God. With the Christian faith being of such pivotal importance in Rossetti’s life, it is unsurprising that she, like Winterson employs such frequent use of the biblical imagery of fruit, however both writers utilise it to present different moral themes. One of the main presentations of fruit in Rossetti’s poetry is temptation and betrayal, encompassing Goblin Market, A Prince’s Progress, and An Apple Gathering; as one critic, Anthony H. Harrison, suggests: ‘As in An Apple-Gathering, at issue in almost all of Rossetti 's poems about betrayed lovers or betrayed expectations of love is the unattainability of

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