The Farmer's Bride by Charlotte Mew

Poet:

• Women poets were still facing a brick wall layered with male poets and writers
• Lived through WW1
• Women were fighting for the vote when she was alive
• Two of her siblings were branded to be 'insane'
• Her sister and her made a pack to never marry - didn't want to pass insanity on to children
• She would have been a 'dandy' - dressing like a Victorian man
• Could have been a lesbian

Themes:

• Women's rights (she was going through the era of change) (whole poem could have been a metaphor for the way women were treated in this time)
• Prodominant awerness of mental illness (she doesnt want to be close with the farmer - seen as abnormal. It could be a conciet for women being locked away from society???) (dehumanisation of mentally ill) 
• Nature (is this poem a metaphor for Britain's industrialisation in which nature has been shunned due to greater use in mass machinery?) 
• Talk about the microcosm of her society 
• 'Bride' - innocence, she doesn't want to call herself a wife
• Farmer's bride could represent women/naturalist
• Farm could be seen as society/ nature
• Farmer could be seen as all men/ exploiter

Voice of the poem: 

• the male farmer 
• monolgue 
• unreliable narration - shows society's views. genuine lack of understanding, fault in him, blindness of man
• represents the male's attitude to marriage 
• this is used in an attempt to cristise the male patrichal society and trying to show and imbalance in society

Structure: 

• no set structure in terms of stanza length, meter per line varies 
• reflects and imbalance (insane, inequality)
• reflects the three themes

The Farmer's Bride

• possive nature
• attitudes towards gender and marriage 
• implies women were considered 'property' - she doesn't even have a name 

Three Summers since I chose a maid,

Too young maybe - but to do

At harvest - time than bide and woo

When us was wed she turned afraid

Of love and me and all things human;

Like the shut of a winter's day 

Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman - 

More like a frightened fay.

One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

• 'Three summers' - reference to seasons (nature theme), seasons play out quite significantly in the poem, time of warmth and happiness and brightness. 
• 'I chose a maid' - he is the subject. She didn't have a choice which displays how women had very littloe power which was very typical of society and women had little say. She is an object. 
• 'do' and 'whoo' -rhyming couplet
• 'at harvest  time...' - didn't spend much time romancing her, the prgmatic business of farming land is more important to him. For farmer's its the busiest time. Nature of marriage - why does he marry her if he doesn't have time? Marriage is completely male dominated and women are a commodity. He could see her as a free labourer. 
• 'when us was wed' - example of unstandard dialect. Not educated, countryside, lack of sophistication 
• 'like the shut of a winter's day'…