A Wife in London - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

A Wife in London

by Thomas HardySlide2

TRAGEDY AND IRONY

Using a dictionary look up and define, in your book, the words

Tragedy

and

Irony

.

Look back at the letter and telegram. Which is the tragedy?

Can you think of any way that the receipt of these letters could be ironic?Slide3

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

English novelist and

poet

Critical of much in Victorian society

Interested in social reformFelt socially inferior and believed that social class held people backMany of his poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and lifeSlide4

What is this poem about?

In this poem a wife is waiting at home in London for news of her husband who is fighting in South

Africa in the Boer War.

Fog is filling the London streets when there is a knock at the door and a messenger arrives with

news…Slide5

LANGUAGE

A messenger's knock

cracks

smartly, 

   Flashed news is in her hand    Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly:    He--has fallen--in the far South LandHow do the words used here help us to understand the impact of the news on this woman? What kind of news is this?Slide6

LANGUAGE

Why is it relevant that London is foggy when the woman receives this news?

What do you think the

fog

represents?Slide7

I – The Tragedy

She sits in the tawny vapour 

That the

Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold.Why would the fog be bad around the river?

What it the effect of this description?

g

etting smallerSlide8

I – The Tragedy

A messenger's knock

cracks

smartly, Flashed news in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand  Though shaped so shortly: He—he has fallen—in the far South Land…How is the shock of the news emphasised in this stanza?Why does Hardy use an elipsis here?

What technique is this? What does it make us think of?Slide9

II – The IRONY

'Tis

the morrow; the

fog hangs thicker

, The postman nears and goes: A letter is brought whose lines disclose By the firelight flicker His hand, whom the worm now knows:Is there more than one possible meaning here?Can

you see a

rhyming pattern

across the four stanzas?

Technique?

Effect?Slide10

II – The IRONY

Fresh -- firm--penned

in

highest

feather -- Page-full of his hoped return, And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn In the summer weather, And of new love that they would learn.What do you think this phrase means?Why is it important that this stanza end with a full stop?Slide11

Think for yourself

What is the significance of the weather in the poem?

Which is the most horrific image in the poem? How does it contrast to the

euphamism

“he has fallen”?Explain how the poet uses techniques to show the impact of the telegram on the woman?How does Hardy set the mood in the first stanza? Slide12

Writing about it

Point

The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death.

Evidence

TechniqueExplanationReader (effect on)Slide13

Writing about it

The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death.

The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.”

Technique

ExplanationReader (effect on)Slide14

Writing about it

The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death.

The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.”

This could be a metaphor for the way that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London.

ExplanationReader (effect on)Slide15

Writing about it

The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death.

The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.”

This could be a

metaphor for her grief, having received the news of her husband’s death. Hardy seems to be suggesting that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London. She is trapped in her grief. This links to the idea in the first stanza of the fog being like a web.Reader (effect on)Slide16

Writing about it

The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death.

The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.”

This could be a

metaphor for her grief, having received the news of her husband’s death. Hardy seems to be suggesting that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London. She is trapped in her grief. This links to the idea in the first stanza of the fog being like a web. This leaves the reader with a gloomy sense that this woman is isolated by her grief. It is even more poignant, then, when in this third stanza she received a letter from her dead husband. Hardy seems to be reminding us of the awful ironies there sometimes are in life.Slide17

Think for yourself

What is the significance of the weather to the poem?

Which is the most horrific image in the poem? How does it contrast to the

euphamism

“he has fallen”?Explain how the poet uses techniques to show the impact of the telegram on the woman?How does Hardy set the mood in the first stanza? Slide18

London fog

Read the extract you have been given.

You need to answer the following questions (these are similar to the exam questions you will be given).

How can the writer tell that people are unhappy in the fog?

What do we learn from the extract about the what it is like to be in the fog? You should write about:The things that the fog is compared to;The words the writer uses to describe the fog.