Subjects:
is taken directly from the first line of the first stanza. The title immediately caught my eye, stirring up my emotions and forcing me to keep reading, if only to find out what “His Requirement” (1. 1) might be. I believe the first stanza focuses on what the female in the poem once had.
She Rose to His Requirement -dropt/The Playthings of Her Life/To take
the honorable Work/Of Woman and of Wife - (1. 1-4)
The first line alone is packed with alliteration, with a heavy “r” sound. It is obvious in her choice of the words “rose” (1. 1) and “requirement” (1. 1), but less obvious in the word “dropt” (1. 1). Perhaps this is the reason she chooses to use the dash at the end of the line, rather than just carrying the word over into the next line. However, the dash also causes a pause in the reading, forcing the reader to stop and focus on the harshness of it.
She says she “dropt the Playthings of Her Life” (1. 1-2), which can be taken to mean a wide variety of things. I believe she is trying to convey some sort of loss of innocence in these words. Rather than to take the “playthings” (1. 2) literal
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Dickinson then seems to take on a sarcastic tone in the third and fourth lines, “To take the honorable Work/Of Woman and of Wife - (1. Yet they refer to the sea as female only when relating it to her fickleness, her ability to lead you one way, then throw you the next. Therefore, she is saying not only is a woman’s inner beauty and depth hidden by this “requirement”, but also her ugliness, her indiscretions, and her taboo thoughts. However, she may be symbolically referring to the gold of the wedding ring. ” This means that only the woman herself will ever know her own fathoms or depth, that dwell inside of them.
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