Talk:A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment
i would like to inform you regarding Mr. A'Rahman he doesn't come on duty today
My ancestor by marriage, and thoughts of her husband away fighting for the colonies[edit]
I'm interested in this particularly because Anne bradstreet was Simon Bradstreet(e)s wife, Simon being my ancestor through my fathers blood line. I find this poem so sweet and forlorn, because she misses her husband so much. Her life must have not resembled mine at all, with all the comforts of the 21st century, I know nothing of the challenges, work to keep a home going, the pain of childbirth without modern painkillers, praying for enough food to see her family through the winter. But she says a respite from her forlorness comes when she looks at her children, little reminders of the man she loves very much. I adore this poem as it gives an insight to life at Ipswich, Massachusetts, over 400 years ago, from the viewpoint of the first settlers. What would Anne and Simon think of America today? Could they have possibly envisioned the changes they would see if they could come back today and take a look around. Would they even recognize Ipswich, recognize the people as being anything like their fellow settlers, who believed in and asked God for his protection in this new land, where hostile Indians, and bears, and wolves and whatever else they would have encountered. Americans, myself included, have become weak, ungrateful, and have come to expect a good life because someone promised us an "American Dream" a long time ago. There is no dream, there was Anne Bradstreet, Simon Bradstreet, and all the settlers who lived a very real life of danger to build a new life in the colonies, and suffered loss of every kind while trying to start over here in America (her house burnt down at one point). I look forward to meeting these strong God loving relatives in heaven one day, I'm sure I'll be impressed with the strength I'll see....but before I do, I plan to learn as much as I can about the Bradstreets and other settlers, and even try to emulate the qualities that made these settlers fight and continue fighting for a new life in America, the country we just take for granted today.
Summary[edit]
Anne Bradstreet’s, “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” is a heartfelt poem that expresses her devotion and longing for her husband who is away due to employment demands. Bradstreet expresses the way she feels towards her husband when he is home and when he is away through the use of nature metaphors. She describes the way this has an effect on her emotionally and spiritually. She sees him in their children and views marriage as a union of two people joined together as one. Without him, she feels fractured and a tremendous amount of loss. Their separation does not diminish her love for him as she states,
"So many steps, head from heart to sever
If but a neck, soon should we be together”.
Bradstreet looks forward to his return and is hopeful that they will not be apart again until death takes them. She expresses her unabashed love for her husband throughout the text with an outpouring of emotion. She feels when he returns they will be one with each other again.
Zodiac Symbolism[edit]
Bradstreet conveys her strong feelings and yearning for her husband by using a host of literary tools. She references astrological allusions throughout the text. With these astrological allusions it is to give the sense that the zodiac is in the stars and thats how far way she feels her and her husband are from each other. She also uses the zodiac symbolism to represent the time she has been away from her husband. She likens herself to the Earth and her husband to the Sun by implementing figurative language. She speaks of his returning by using zodialogical signs when she says,
“I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast”
Another example of this is when she states,
"Return, return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn"
Nature Metaphors[edit]
Bradstreet uses nature metaphors in her work to express the way she feels when her husband and with her and when he is gone. The warm words such as sun, melt, sol, are used to explain the warm feeling that she has when he is around. The cold terms such as frost, frigid, chilled and numbed are used to describe the cold feelings she has when he is not around. She uses multiple feelings within some sentences to give comparison and they way they have an effect on each other. A few of these metaphors are shown in the following sentences.
"Whom whilst I joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,
His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt" in this example she is explaining how the warmth that he brings when he returns an cause the coldest of feelings(when he is gone) to melt.
Bradstreet’s content is very fluid and clearly expresses her strong feelings for her husband. She is able to share her emotions without seeming to be a pitiful character but rather as a wife who is devoted to her husband and has a great reverence for her marriage.