Saturday The Small Pox Analysis

In “Saturday the Small Pox,” one pattern that is used throughout this passage is the use of objects or ideas to indirectly describe her beauty. In line one, Montagu describes how no one would ever acknowledge the idea of betraying her. This could be indirectly implying that men would never do such a foolish thing because her beauty is so remarkable and is the fairest of them all. To explain her contraction of smallpox, she also writes about how her beauty has fled. In line 9, she notes that her followers are no longer beside her. This suggests that her small pox has negatively affected her beauty and her status. The use of these objects and ideas implicitly describing her beauty is used to generate the feelings she must be feeling like pity …show more content…
At first Montagu brags about her beauty, but then all of a sudden when she’s no longer beautiful she has lost her status, power, and confidence. While I felt sorry at first that her advocacy as a leader is based upon her beauty, I didn’t sympathize because she was so overindulgent of what she had to begin with that she couldn’t see beyond that. I say this because of the ideas she wrote to create unspoken meanings. For instance, she suspects that the guys would deal her the right cards because of her beauty as written in line 3. In fact, maybe it was because they saw more than that in her, but she was too infatuated with idea that it was her beauty. We all have had a pimple or blemish on our face before and are able to relate to the embarrassing concept that everyone judges you based on that beauty flaw. While it may not be as dramatic for us like losing our followers, we may still feel as if we lost connections due to our beauty blemishes. This is why we as readers may feel sympathy for her and can consider that this was a tactic to bring significance to the …show more content…
I noticed in the passage that for every two lines, the last word of the line rhymes with the last word of the next line. For example, “Fired by one wish, all did alike adore,” following line, “Now beauty 's fled, and lovers are no more.” Notice, how ‘adore’ and ‘more’ rhyme with each other. The significance of rhyming the last words together would be because it creates great imagery and can be very catching. This format also helps the poem roll off the tip of our tongues as we read. This can connect ideas and thoughts together and make for a smooth transition between lines in the passage. Another plus to using this pattern is that it makes it easier to memorize. The easier people can understand and recall a poem the more likely they are going to recommend it to someone else. Considering there weren’t too many female writers who were acknowledged during this time period, it was critically important that she created a poem that stands out and holds a unique difference among other poems. This way her poem was looked at by society beyond what gender she happens to be. Montagu was also known to be a nonconformist so she wanted to display the Black Plague with a different pattern so others could understand it