Essay on Compare The Homecoming and The Workbox by Thomas...

Compare The Homecoming and The Workbox by Thomas Hardy. The two poems I have chosen to compare are, The Homecoming and The Workbox by Thomas Hardy. In the poem The Homecoming, a newly married couple arrive home for the first time. The young bride is unhappy already in the marriage though the husband seems quite happy. In The Workbox, however, it is not a new marriage and we see the husband giving a workbox he has made to his wife and the story behind it. There are many different themes and attitudes in the two poems and they are very closely linked, sharing some of the same ideas. Thomas Hardy uses different poetic techniques in both to express his ideas and the attitudes towards women in the early 20th century.†¦show more content†¦Here it shows she is angry with her husband as dear is usually an affectionate term but being placed second in the sentence it gives a bitter feel. The idea that the husbands protected the women shows also how men thought women to be the weaker sex. In The Workbox, we see this as the husband keeps looking down to her such as when he says, little wife. The way the word wife rhymes with life emphasizes it and make it seem even more like he is the wiser partner who can protect and look out for her. In the poem, The Homecoming the new wife describes to her husband all the things she doesnt like about his house when she says, a floor o wretched stone, and nasty pewter platters, horrid forks of steel and bone, and a monstrous crock in chimney. This shows childishness on the girls behalf, possibly showing that all her life she has been treated like a lesser member of society, which is shown as an attitude towards women in the early 20th century. An attitude to marriage was that a girls father looks after her until she is married, then her husband takes up that job, which is shown in The Homecoming when her husband says to his wife, Ill sing to ee a pretty song, which is extremely