Felicia Hemans published numerous poems, publications and plays during her career. She overcame a lot of adversities throughout her life. Her father left her family to start a new life in Canada when she was young; and her husband left for Italy shortly after their marriage. Felicia's relationship with men evoked in her a sense of distrust and unreliability. In the wife of Asdrubal, she describes how a vindictive woman killed herself and her children following her husband's capture. She also explains the cowardly act of the husband in the verse "this fierce Asdrubal, was so mean-spirited, as to come alone, and privately throw himself at the conqueror's feet". She concludes the story by depicting the wife as a hero. She triumphed in the end. Instead of being sympathetic toward the husband, she sought revenge by killing herself and her two children. " Base coward said she! the mean things thou hast done to save thy life shall not avail thee".
I understand the author's frustration, but I totally disagree with the fact that the character destroyed to innocent lives to satisfy her ego. That was a very selfish act. The wife may have disliked her husband, but the children may have loved their father. The story also characterizes the significance of honor during the romantic period.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Claude,
This entry on Hemans was posted after the deadline; there will be a late penalty in the grade.
Good choice of a poem to discuss. There are some problems in your discussion, though. You only quote a brief line from the poem, and don't really analyze it. Also, you quote a line as coming from the poem (calling it "verse") when it is fact from her introductory summary of the historical event. In your final paragraph you select a good issue to argue--the bravery or cowardice of Asdrubal's wife. I would like to have seen you pursue that point further, and to examine textual support for or against it.
I agree with you completely! A woman that takes the lives of her children, no matter what the reason may be, is no hero. She is a coward and she is very selfish. Taking your own life is one thing, but taking the lives of children is another and its something that cannot be tolerated. The woman in the text receives no love or respect from me. Shame on her!
Claude,
The only (s)heroism that I found was that we should assume that being captured after the father's cowardice would be like death for the wife and children. For example, if an African or Jewish woman had done the same thing (knowing that her children would be slaves or exterminated by Nazis). Longman's bio presents Hemans as a nontraditional, but not murderous mother who let her family help her with the raising of her children.
Unlike her husband Asdrubal, she refused to give in to the enemy, the Romans' hands, she chose to die with a free will, body and mind, her act of killing her children might seem cowardly but that surfaces from a superficial reading. Previous acts of mass annihilation has been traced in history which had been done for the sake of honour and lessening, rather letting zero traces of torture remain. This has happened in history and if an act has to be called out to be intolerable then it was Asdrubal who let it all happen. The unnamed wife rather took charge of her as well as her offsprings'lives.
Post a Comment