The Workbox

When analyzing a poem it is vital to understand that the figurative speech, gives a deeper meaning of what it shows in first instance. Many times the figurative speech lies in metaphors or similes featured in the stanzas, however, it can also be seen in what the author does not write. Particularly, the latter, is an excellent tool for poems with sarcastic and ironic tones, such as in Thomas Hardy “The Workbox”. Hardy allows its characters to avoid revealing certain information, in order to give the poem a double meaning, both contrary to each other. In an underhand way, the poem shows us the wife, in love with John Waynward, despite of what she says; the husband, who seems to be punishing his wife for having an affair with John; and finally, the death of John, as the husband’s fault.

Even though the wife insists in various occasions of not having any feelings towards John, evidence throughout the poem, make us …show more content…
“Yet still her lips were limp and wan, Her face still held aside, As if she had known not only John, But known of what he died.” (37-40)
It’s here where Hardy puts the reader in such position, to be able to assume, that the wife is suffering more for John's death than what she wants to admit. It also allows to infer, that there is the possibility that the wife and John maintained a secret intimate relationship.

In the same way the reader might think that she had a relationship with John, the husband appears to assume the same thing and to be eager to punish her for that. However, he first wants to make sure that this supposition is correct. For it, he pressures her with questions that are more and more inquisitive. “You knew not that good lad, I fear,/ Though he came from your native place?”(23-24) His intention is for her to admit the affair and that, in a way, she loves John more than