Married state

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‘A Married State’ is written by a poet named Katherine Philips, the poem is based around the negativity of a life since a man and women ever join in holy matrimony. Whereas, The ‘Song of a Worker’s Wife’ is by a poet named Alice Grey Jones; the poem is based around life’s involvement on a growing family. The two poems that are based on the thoughts of marriage and a women’s role within it, they take sharply opposite views.

‘A Married State’ is set in a negative tone; the reader is drawn into the intense atmosphere on lines 1-2, ‘A married state affords but little ease: The best of husbands are so hard to please.’ It describes the hard life of a strained married hood ‘little ease’ elaborates more on the husband’s and wife’s relationship showing the very little freedom in their relationship, for the wife to break through into pleasure would be a struggle even with ‘the best of husbands’.

Whereas, ‘Song of a Worker’s Wife’ is set in a positive tone in the comparison to marriage in lines 1-5 ‘My hands are none to white’… ‘But my hands are not complaining’. It describes a wives believes that all her labor is beneficial to the ones she loves, her family, reaching out the audiences sympathy for motherhood, the author also uses adjectives to create this effect. There are 4 stanzas in the poem; each stanza is in chronological order in family ageing. For this reason the language of the poem is very informative and simple, reaching an audience of the common housewives so that the readers can easily relate.

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‘A Married State’ is written in 3rd person, throughout the poem there are 7-9 syllables per line creating an consistent rhythm making the atmosphere quite dismal towards the reader. The poem is written in only 1 stanza to become straight to complex with the middle class housewives, especially in lines 7-9, ‘No blustering husbands to create your fears, No pangs of childbirth to extort your tears, No children’s cries for to offend your ears,’ the author uses repetition to create listed reasons of a sorrow life, developing a persuasive response directly at the reader by also using personal pronouns such ...

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