The poem “Not To Blame” is quite biased on the view of mistreatment towards women in the last five lines of the first verse as there is a “lad” sort of theme going on which is shown by, “Your buddies all stood by.” “They bet their fortunes and their fame” shows how the men do not take this matter seriously. Most importantly, the violence issue in the poem is expressed by using words such as, “fistmarks” and “battered wives.” “Daddy, lets get some girls,” shows how males pass on their violent, disrespectful and un-human on to younger children as some sort of tradition. “She was out of line, and you were not to blame” indicates how men do not take responsibility for their actions, they just blame the women who is the victim and usually innocent.
Both poems show pedophilic elements in some way or another, but “The Magdalene Laundries” shows this more clearly than the poem “Not To Blame” by saying how “Most girls come here pregnant.” It continues in the next couple of lines to describe how they get pregnant. “Some by their own fathers” and “By her parish priest” are lines in the poem that show some types of people that get girls pregnant. Fathers should not be having sex with their own daughters because it is a sick act but is also illegal. Priests are supposed to remain celibate, so they should not be having sex with any girls, particularly outside of a marriage.
The nuns in “The Magdalene Laundries” are shown as heartless and almost not human, when Mitchell describes them as “Bloodless brides of Jesus.” They are also shown as destroyers rather than preserves of life and goodness. There are phrases within the poem which show this – “They wilt the grass they walk upon” and “They leech the light out of a room.” They are also brutal, cruel and extremely violent to the women. This is shown by “They’d like to drive us down the drain,” which links back to the issue of violence in “Not to Blame.” The nuns are also seen as uncaring as they do not pay the dead their proper and suitable respect that is traditionally shown at funerals; “They just stuffed her in a hole!” and “You’d at least think some bells should ring!” here, there is another link to the “Little grave” that was mentioned in “Not to Blame.” Some Churches even disallowed burials of suicide victims within their grounds as these funerals were often more low key affairs. The reduced nature of the dead women’s ceremony reflects the Churches negative view towards suicide and how the girl in “Not to Blame” is being blamed for what her husband thought. Worthlessness is also shown as the poet says that when she dies, “they’ll plant me in the dirt, like some lame bulb.”
“The Magdalene Laundries” introduces an “unmarried girl” who is taken away, which shows the emphasis the Church and society place on marriage, as being a single, young woman seems to put you at risk. Similarly, even the non-marring nuns are depicted in terms of marriage when they are described as “brides of Jesus,” showing how they have dedicated their lives to another male. Marriage is again linked in with violence in “Not to Blame” and is shown with “The battered wives.” It shows how “wives” get beaten or “battered” by their husbands. Mitchell uses contrasts such as “They say you beat the girl, you loved the most” and “With the beauty, with the fistmarks on her face” to link violence with marriage. It shows that men have a sense of belonging over the women once in marriage, also to have control over the marriage and for them to exploit their frustrations on the women. Marriage is not shown as the joyous and loving union that it is supposed to be.
The churches attitude towards sex is very strict. It states that sex should only be used to reproduce and is not meant for pleasure. It also feels very strongly about not having sex outside of a marriage. The nuns in “The Magdalene Laundries” show no Christian love or “charity”. The word “charity” in “The Magdalene Laundries” is linked to “Not To Blame” because in the first paragraph, it mentions “Charitable acts” by men. Both words, “Charity” and “Charitable” are both positive word that usually cast a positive image. Instead, both words are used in negative paragraphs which can show either sarcasm or proudness of a cruel act.
I think that the Catholic Church misunderstands the significance of Mary Magdalene and Christ’s teachings and takes it all the wrong way. This is proved by the nuns using Mary Magdalene’s name for the laundries. They do this to reflect the fact that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. The misunderstanding is that Jesus’ association with Mary was supposed to prove to people that he came to save everybody including sinners like Mary.
In “The Magdalene Laundries” the young girl says “If they had just once glimpsed their Groom.” By this she means that if they had met Jesus they might have had understood the story a bit better and found the true meaning of it. Then they would have realised that they were in the wrong.
The nuns are called “sisters.” This introduces a sense of family between them, which is the complete opposite of what the nuns offer the girls. “The Magdalene Laundries” are shown as hell which is seen through the term “jezebel.” The meaning of the term is wicked woman or Queen. The idea that the girls are “cast” into the laundries is as if they were cast into hell.
A lot of colour has been used in the second stanza of “Not to Blame,” especially the colour red to illustrate a link to violence – “bleeding,” “I bleed” and “red words” are all phrases used. There is a link between the colour red and hell as the colour of hell is usually referred to as red. “These red words that make a stain” is showing that the violence and hell is like a stain, because it never goes away.
The second and last colour used within the poems is white. In “The Magdalene Laundries,” the line “white as snow” has two meanings. Firstly the colour white shows purity of which these sinners wish to purify their souls in order to reach heaven. Secondly it shows the whiteness of the clean washing that they do day in, day out. In “Not to Blame,” the term white-washed is used in the sense of a cover up. This shows a contrast and a different use of the colour, white.
The laundries are a place of horror and not redemption. This is shown in the idea of being “sentenced” which is a term usually linked with a prison. This shows that the laundries are like a prison. Again, there is a link back to how the women are trapped within a marriage, like in “Not to Blame,” it leads to the woman in the poem committing suicide. This can be linked once more to a phrase in the poem which conjures up an image of doctors “poking at the miseries made of love.”
Both poems contain a great deal of poetic techniques between them. Emotive language is one of the techniques used to inspire emotion. In “The Magdalene Laundries” the term stuffed in a hole is used to inspire pity for the girls in light of the nun’s mistreatment and unexplainable actions. Similarly the term “lame bulb” is used to reflect the fact that the girls were considered to be worthless by the nuns.
In “Not to Blame” the idea of doctors “poking” at the victim’s body shows the doctors reluctance to touch them, but also highlights the severity of the injuries. We know that the injuries caused were bad because the term “battered” was used early on in the poem to emphasis the violence.
Alliteration is also used in both poems to gain effect. In “The Magdalene Laundries,” the poet uses expressions such as “dreamless drudgery” to bring to light the hopelessness of the girl’s situation.
In “Not to Blame” the use of “fortunes” and “fame” in the first stanza illustrates how men are sheltered from the blame through their positive attitudes outside of the household.
Repetition is used to provide effect. This repetition is used in “The Magdalene Laundries” at the end of the poem, when the phrase “come any spring, come any spring, no, not any spring…” is used. This is done to demonstrate the no hope, no escape situation.
Likewise, in “Not to Blame” the repetition of a similar phrase at the end of every stanza is used to accentuate the injustice of the situation.
A triple is used in “The Magdalene Laundries” but not in “Not to Blame.” A triple proves very effective, because you have three similar things listed together. An example from “The Magdalene Laundries” is “Prostitutes and destiutes and temptresses.” This triple shows three different reasons why girls could be placed at the laundry.
Contrasts are two opposite words placed together to achieve an effective result. These contrasts are used in “Not to Blame” but not “The Magdalene Laundries.” One of the contrasts in “Not to Blame” is “jezebel” and “heaven.” They appear in alternate lines of the first stanza. It is a contrast because “jezebel” represents evil and “heaven” represents good. This skill is used regularly in the poem with “beat” and “love” being another contrast. The reason is that love and violence do not mix, so brings a shock into the poem.
Different colours are used in both poems to provide contrast. “Bleeding,” “I bleed” and “red words” are terms from “Not to Blame” that are indicating the colour red, whilst the phrase “white as snow” is used in “The Magdalene Laundries” to show the colour white. These two different colours in both poems provide a contrast.
On reading both poems and comparing and contrasting them in depth, it leads me to a decision of which one I prefer. I chose “The Magdalene Laundries” as my preferred poem because it is more personal than “Not to Blame.” Additionally, I prefer it because in describes the laundries in great detail and so makes the poem very appealing. It also showed the nuns and the catholic religion in a different light to how I always interpreted it. I found the poetic techniques used in “The Magdalene Laundries” more interesting than the ones in “Not to Blame.” However, “Not to Blame” did use good contrasts and highlighted and educated me more about an old nationwide problem.
