The River Merchants Wife, a Letter
In "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter", the author Li Po uses the Dramatic Poem style to show the character. He takes on the persona of the young girl who marries the River-Merchant. Throughout the poem, the girl grows. She is forced to marry the River-Merchant at 14 years, and is very depressed because she doesn't love him. Over the next few years, she grows very fond of him. At the age of 16, her husband must go to the "river of the swirling eddies". She then notices how much she loves him and how she wants him to return.Li Po uses many symbols to describe the character. When he says her "hair was still cut straight across" her forehead, he was showing that she was very young by describing the childish hair she had. He uses the front gate 2 times in the play. The front gate has been overcome by moss at the end of the poem, and he is showing how the girl gets older and how her spouse hasn't passed through that gate to return. It is likely that the river merchant was taken away against his will because the girl says, "you dragged your feet when you went out". The girl shows that she is sincere about her feelings when she says how she misses him. She picks up all the noises and acti
The Stanzas of the poem are all different lengths, the first 3 being short and the last being almost twice as long as the others. This physical setup of the poem is showing that while the girl is with her husband, time seems to fly by, but when she loses him, she feels that time just creeps by very slowly. The setup of the poem has to do with the theme "you don't know what you have until it's gone". In the short stanzas, she is taking the presence of the merchant for granted. When the merchant is forced to leave, she notices how much she has grown to love him and how much she wishes that he would return. On the last line of the poem, Li Po purposely starts the line many spaces in from the usual beginning of the line. He is using the form of a concrete poem. By spacing out that line "As far as Cho-fu-Sa" he is showing in a physical way how far the girl is willing travel to try to find her husband. ons of animals in nature that she would have never noticed. She explains how everything has couples and pairs, everything except her. She gives human-like qualities to some of the animals when she says, "the monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead". She thinks that her husband's presence has even effected nature. Li Po uses many symbols to describe the character. When he says her "hair was still cut straight across" her forehead, he was showing that she was very young by describing the childish hair she had. He uses the fron
Some common words found in the essay are:
Li Po, River-Merchant Throughout, Dramatic Poem, Wife Letter, poem girl, li po, wife letter, setup poem, front gate, Merchant's Wife, Letter River-Merchant's, short twice physical, River-Merchant's Wife, Po Dramatic, setup poem girl, twice physical, physical setup, girl husband, twice physical setup, 3 short, poem girl husband, physical setup poem, short twice,
Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
