Essay on Dramatic Monologues in Poetry

The poem which will be discussed in this paper is the poem For My Lover, Returning To His Wife written by Anne Sixton. The poetess represents a dramatic monologue of a woman who does not want to be only a mistress. The speaker tells her lover to return to his wife who is the dearest person for him. She says, “She is more than that. She is your have to have, / has grown you your practical your tropical growth / This is not an experiment. She is all harmony” (25-27) The speaker does not want to remain only the mistress, that is why she allows her lover to leave her: “I give you back your heart / I give you permission”. (29-30) The poetess managed to represent a typical situation, or a typical love triangle where one of the women should leave. (McGowan 71) The speaker is sure that she means nothing, but his wife is everything for him. She says, “She is the sum of yourself and your dream / Climb her like a mountain, step after step. / She is solid. / As for me, I am a watercolor / I wash off” (44-48) These words prove the fact that the wife is a more important person for the speaker’s lover.

It is necessary to say that the mistress wants to stop her illegal relations. She does not want to ruin a good family because she knows that her lover appreciates his wife. The speaker tells that she has always been “momentary”, and she is “a luxury”. (9-10)

The third poem Home Burial written by Robert Frost differs from the previous ones because the poet represents another form of the dramatic monologue. There are two speakers in this poem. So, this is a dialogue. The poet tries to show a great deal of human emotions in the conversation between a wife and a husband. A so-called mini-drama helps the readers to learn more about such feelings as grief, frustration, anger. (Parini 51)

The couple has just lost their child, and their relations have changed too. The poet shows the behavior of men and women in this tragic situation. The mother cannot accept the death of her only child, while the father has accepted it. The man is rude with his wife. He says, “What is it you see / From up there always — for I want to know”. (6-7) He realizes that his wife is constantly looking to the grave of their child. However, he does not comfort her. He says, “I never noticed it from here before”. (22) Moreover, he says with irony that their child’s grave is “not so much larger than a bedroom”. (26) Of course, the woman cannot put up with her husband’s relation to the death of their only child. The death of the child leads to the death of their sexual relations. ( Nelson 116) She is sure that a man cannot “speak of his own child he’s lost” (37) She says, “You can’t because you don’t know how to speak”. (75)

The poet shows that it is easy to learn more about a person when some trouble situation occurs in the family. It is clear that the husband should comfort his wife who is in grief and cannot put up with the death of her child. In this case, the man is rude, heartless and powerful person who wants his wife to keep silence. Of course, such relations cannot exist between a man and a woman. She says, “I must go- / Somewhere out of this house”. (116-117)

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it is necessary to say that a dramatic monologue, as a poetic form, has the greatest impact on the readers because of its emotionality. The poet shows the speaker’s feelings and emotions, and the readers are ready to evaluate the situation. The poems discussed in this paper represent three different situations: the death of the wife and the husband’s relation to it, a typical love triangle when a mistress cannot agree with her role, and the death of the child that leads to the breath of relations between the wife and the husband. The speakers’ characters are fully revealed in each of the situation. Moreover, the readers can learn about the speakers’ conceptions of themselves and others, as well as about their understanding of the situations.