The imagery that is displayed in Marianna is of a decaying old manor house, where the woman of the title lives. The reader is given the image of the house disintegrating around her especially by one sentence.
“The broken sheds look’d sad and strange”
The words ‘broken’, ‘look’d sad’ and ‘strange’ reflect the image of Marianna. They all create any image of Marianna and how she feels as she waits for the man to return to her life. As well as showing her feeling, it also reflects on the state of her surroundings and how she has let them become.
Another example of decay is a quote taken from the first verse of the poem
“The rusted nails fell from the knots”
This also shows us how the manor house is starting to fall to bits around Marianna.
In the second verse, the author writes of a symbol of Marianna crying
“Her tears fell with dews at even”
This quote symbolises the crying of Marianna as she waits for her somebody to return home to her. Even though deep in her heart she knows that he will not return home to her.
The house that Marianna lives in, is situated quite far from anyone else
“The cluster’d marish-mosses crept”
The loneliness and isolation of the house is shown in the quote. This shows that moss is creeping all around the house making it more and more isolated.
Another type of symbolism is of Marianna wanting to see this person so much she starts to imagine seeing him.
“The shadow of the poplar fell upon her bed, across her brow”.
The poplars shadow symbolises a persons shadow on her bed and Marianna would have thought it was the person she was waiting for.
In the sixth verse, Marianna starts to loose her mind
“Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors”
This shows that Marianna is starting to imagine seeing and hearing things in her desperation for her love to return to her.
In the final verse, Marianna finally gives up hope
“He will not come‘ she said;
She wept, ‘I am a aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!”
This quote shows how Marianna is giving up all hope of her love returning to her and she wishes that she herself was dead.
Both of these poems are written from slightly different perspectives even though they share the same theme. The two poems are both written on the theme of waiting, loneliness and isolation as both of the main characters are waiting for somebody. In Marianna, she is waiting for somebody to return home to her and in this poem this is stressed very much. While in With or Without you the main character is being forces by her to wait until she decides to return to him.
The perspectives of the two poems are only slightly different as Marianna is written from the point of view of a woman waiting for somebody and in With or Without you, it is written from the perspective of a man waiting for a woman.
Both of these poems have some similarities and some differences. One of the similarities of the two poems is that the themes of the poems are very similar as they talk about waiting for someone. One of the differences is that With or Without you has been made into a song so many of the lines have been repeated throughout the poem. In conclusion I have examined the two poems in detail. I have also looked at all the similarities and differences of the two poems and I have come to realise that the two poems are more similar than different.
