

The Wife's Lament Essay

953 words - 4 pages

The story of “The Wife’s Lament” is a mystery. There are many interpretations of who the wife was and what she was going through. Two of the possibilities are that she was killed by her husband and haunted the earth in her afterlife and that after her husband died she went crazy.
One justifiable theory is that her husband, the lord, was unhappy and killed her. It appears that he could have murdered her in a few sections. In the poem she laments that that he was sorrowful and down on his luck (“Wife’s” 1). For this reason, it is plausible that he decided to take out his bad fortune on his wife by killing her. It is unclear why he would choose to kill her, regardless she speaks as one who has been betrayed. She states openly that he was embroiled and considering murder (“Wife’s” 1). Although he could have been preparing to kill someone else, there is no one else mentioned in the poem to give evidence of that. She is still reeling from the shock of his betrayal, surprised that he would do that. For these reasons, the wife may have killed her husband.
Moreover, the wife is unrestful as one would be if stuck on earth as a living dead. She says that he has sent her somewhere, to an unhappy place (“Wife’s” 1). A place he could have sent her is the afterlife where she now dwells fretfully. The wife may feel alone there and wonder what has become of her husband and how she had such dreadful luck. She has been exiled and is now alone and friendless (“Wife’s” 1). The ‘exile’ might just be premature death which seems to her like an exile since none of her friends would have died yet either. Now she weeps because they are all on earth and she is separated from them. One point is obvious; she is bitter with her situation. The valley she lives in is very unpleasant, and hardships are insurmountable (“Wife’s” 1). It is cruel fate for her that she ended up this way and she knows she cannot escape it. If she were still alive it would be in her power to leave and find her way back home. Furthermore, she says she cannot rest in peace (“Wife’s” 1). This is a common phrasing for someone who has died. Conceivably, she is wandering the land as a ghost, still searching for her husband. On the whole, this is not an unlikely hypothesis.
Although that story may be true, there is also evidence that supports a theory that she is alive but has been driven mad because her husband died at sea and never returned to her. The wife hints that he has died a few...

Find Another Essay On The Wife's Lament

Lycidas Essay

1513 words - 6 pages narrator's summoning the Muses, Milton is successful in fusing the classical reference toward the Muses with the death of Lycidas, who is a representation of the King.The narrator, after emerging from the first phase of his lament for Lycidas, enters the second stage, in which he searches to find someone to blame for the death of his friend; he even goes so far as to, at first, blame himself for not being able to prevent the death of his friend

Cursive, aspects of the human voice

1084 words - 4 pages Kasher Cashing in with his VoiceCursive"The Lament of Pretty Baby"I saw something I was not supposed to see A ghostly memory that keeps on haunting me (The kitchen door was open a crack, So naively we peeked inside) Oh, darling sister, have they hurt you, have they hurt you? Oh, Pretty Baby, they won't touch you They won't touch you again We will fix this incident I don't want to be seen as a pretty thing 'Cause it's the pretty things that we're

Analyse the poetry of Thomas Hardy

2352 words - 9 pages time where everything has changed. Despite the joy and happiness that the poet describes, it is impossible to ignore the poignancy of this simple lyric. After all, Hardy composed this poem after his wife's death, forty-four years after their initial encounter. Biographical details indicate the marriage was an unhappy and unfulfilling one. Hardy might thus be suggesting that despite the fervour, romance and enchantment of first love, such feelings

Love and Prowess in The Knight with the Lion

3522 words - 14 pages lance. I have never seen one so large." (263)   Besides this, there is the testimony of Calogrenant's courteous host: "So far as they knew or had heard tell, no man, they said, had ever escaped the place from which I had come without being captured or killed" (264), and the lament of Esclados's widow:   "Surely you would never have defeated my lord had he seen you. In this world he had no equal. Neither God nor man knew one, and

The following is a curriculum covering seven lessons, designed for the eleventh grade English classroom

3095 words - 12 pages /wallpaper.html"The Wife's Lament" - Beowulf - UP_ENG_301/scripts/student/ of the History of Slavery : 1619-1789 - criticism - will be able to

The Odyssey

10966 words - 44 pages leader in the Trojan War, he was killed by Aegisthus, his wife's lover, upon his return home. His soul meets Odysseus in the Hall of Hades and warns him of the treachery of women. Achilles - a hero of the Trojan War. His soul meets Odysseus in the Hall of Hades and says that he would prefer to be a serf in the land of the living than a great prince in the land of the dead. Ajax - another Trojan hero. His soul appears in the Hall of

When the Bubble Burst


phase diagram


Revolutionary Work of Art


Enlightenment Thought in New Zealand Schools


Psychological Egoism Theory


Similar Essays

The Wife's Lament Essay

1639 words - 7 pages The Wife's Lament Over the years, there have been many interpretations of who the speaker of The Wife’s Lament could be. These range from very interesting ideas to ones that seem a little rough around the edges. It is obvious that no sure answer can be found due to the fact that whoever wrote this poem is dead and that the answer will always be in speculation even if it is correct. Hopefully, at the end of this quest I will be slightly more

Faith Versus Fate In The Poems "The Seafarer", "The Wanderer", And "The Wife's Lament"

707 words - 3 pages The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contains faith verses fate. The three poems are very similar and very different. The three poems ranging from a lonely man, to a lost soldier, to a wife’s bedrail. The medieval poems show hurt, confusion, and loneliness. The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contain keening in the personalized poems, in many lines. The Wanderer is a poem based on a soldier who went into

Old English Journies Essay

1117 words - 5 pages The Journeys in Old English Poetry In the poems “The Wanderer”, “The Wife’s Lament”, and “Cuchilainn's Boyhood Deeds” there are journeys that each of the characters go through in the poems. In The Wanderer and “The Wife's Lament” the characters are dealing with the lose of a what they called life. In “Cuchilainn's Boyhood Deeds” the young man in the poem is seeking glory and honor. The poem dapple in both a physical journey and a mental or

Medieval Women Essay

1159 words - 5 pages , Goucher College. 1 Feb. 2004. "The Wanderer." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh Edition. Volume 1. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. 114-209. "The Wife's Lament." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh Edition. Volume 1. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. 114-209.