To My Dear and Loving Husband Analysis
- Submitted by: ekc2c
- Views: 894
- Category: English: Poetic Works
- Date Submitted: 05/18/2011 11:48 AM
- Pages: 4
- Report this Essay
Real or Fabricated to Satisfy Him
To argue the question of the narrator’s love for her husband in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” as real or fabricated you must first understand the author and the time in which she lived. Anne Bradstreet was born in England and later moved to the American Colony in Massachusetts. (574) She was raised a Puritan, which are known for their conservative religious views. Puritans believed their sole responsibility on Earth was to live for the glory of God. Marriage’s were influenced by the parents and social class and made lawful by contract. With this information being revealed about Puritans, the question arises, “Is the love described in the poem true and real or fabricated to satisfy Him?”
I use Him in the proper tense to signify God, since working towards the glory of God is the Puritans number one focus in life, I think it fits in this poem. Most will argue that these feelings cannot be true or genuine. This could be for various reasons ranging from the readers own personal experiences to fact based theories. Some readers may hold close to personal values that true love does not exist in which one partner would state “My love is such that a river cannot quench” (Bradstreet 7). To them these are lines used as metaphors in music to exaggerate a singer’s love, but are only fiction and meant to push the description to the limit. Using facts to argue that this type of relationship could not be authentic would be the most logical argument. Those who believe these feelings are not pure would say, “Puritans always place God first” and that, “The only reason a person may try to feel this way is to satisfy Him,” thus the feelings being more focused on God than the husband. Another fact based argument would be that because most marriages were very much restricted and almost arranged, the probability of the two people involved in the marriage being such a good fit is unfeasible. All of these reasons would be presumptuous and...
To argue the question of the narrator’s love for her husband in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” as real or fabricated you must first understand the author and the time in which she lived. Anne Bradstreet was born in England and later moved to the American Colony in Massachusetts. (574) She was raised a Puritan, which are known for their conservative religious views. Puritans believed their sole responsibility on Earth was to live for the glory of God. Marriage’s were influenced by the parents and social class and made lawful by contract. With this information being revealed about Puritans, the question arises, “Is the love described in the poem true and real or fabricated to satisfy Him?”
I use Him in the proper tense to signify God, since working towards the glory of God is the Puritans number one focus in life, I think it fits in this poem. Most will argue that these feelings cannot be true or genuine. This could be for various reasons ranging from the readers own personal experiences to fact based theories. Some readers may hold close to personal values that true love does not exist in which one partner would state “My love is such that a river cannot quench” (Bradstreet 7). To them these are lines used as metaphors in music to exaggerate a singer’s love, but are only fiction and meant to push the description to the limit. Using facts to argue that this type of relationship could not be authentic would be the most logical argument. Those who believe these feelings are not pure would say, “Puritans always place God first” and that, “The only reason a person may try to feel this way is to satisfy Him,” thus the feelings being more focused on God than the husband. Another fact based argument would be that because most marriages were very much restricted and almost arranged, the probability of the two people involved in the marriage being such a good fit is unfeasible. All of these reasons would be presumptuous and...