My interruption of Thomas Hardy's "Workbox" is a poem about a man who married a woman who never loved him. Her first love was John before she became a woman. She was made to her feel insignificant by her husband who could have killed John out of jealousy.
             Hardy's use of verbal, dramatic and tragic irony is seen throughout the poem. Verbal irony is saying the opposite of what is really meant. Dramatic irony is when the reader understands the meaning of the situation and is able to foresee or predict the outcome but the character does not. Tragic irony is a form of dramatic which eventually leads to some sort of tragedy.
             Verbal irony is found in stanza 1 when the husband refers to his wife as little wife, which implies that she is small, insignificant and unimportant. He made the workbox out of oak which is an extremely strong wood that is very durable and will last a long time. I visualize a see-saw and the oak tree is sitting on one end and she is on the other end in the air with no way to get down. She is weightless compared to this oak tree. Not only is the oak strong, it is polished. The use of polished is opposite of how he makes his wife feel. He leads her to believe that she is not elegant, refined, sophisticated or cultured even though she comes from borough folk. Borough is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "a medieval fortified group of houses forming a town with special duties and privileges" which implies that she came from wealth. Did she look down on him because he was "just a carpenter"?
             In stanza 2 why does Hardy have her refer to her husband as the profferer? I see her having no affection for her husband by the use of this word. She never refers to her husband with any fondness. Why is there no emotional attachment to him? Does she have feelings for John and her husband suspects?
             In stanza 3 the husband's verbal irony is obvious when he guarantees th...