Marriage (Poem) Essay Questions

What leads to failure in marriages, according to Moore?

Perhaps the most conspicuous reason for a marriage's failure is self-love. Moore writes that Adam "loves himself so much, / he can permit no rival in that love." Eve "loves herself so much, / she cannot see herself enough." This means that neither person is truly able to understand the other (psychology, after all, is "useless" here). They resort to nasty insults and become apathetic. They find it impossible to follow the rules that marriage requires and devolve into "frightening disinterestedness." Ultimately there can be no true synthesis of union and liberty; the two are mutually irreconcilable.

What do scholars think motivated Moore to write this poem?

Critics see a few main reasons for Moore's writing this work. The main one is that her friend Bryher Ellerman, a modern, progressive woman with her own money, married Robert McAlmon. It makes no sense to Moore, for Bryher had her own money, would not gain in social status, had many friends and lovers already, etc. The drive toward marriage for someone like Bryher is perplexing to say the least. She culls from a myriad of sources to answer her questions and probe the nature of the institution and the "savages" willing to enter into it. The second theory is that it was a response to Moore's editor and friend Scofield Thayer, who asked Moore to marry him. Scofield was already married and Moore saw him only as a friend; thus, this seemed like conspicuous violation of their friendship to her. Finally, a third and less common theory is that it is Moore working through her complicated relationship with her mother, or, conversely, celebrating the mother-daughter relationship as superior to that of married persons.

Why did Moore choose to include so many quotations and allusions?

Although Moore loves to quote/cite/allude in other poems, "Marriage" is the most impressive example of her culling from all manner of sources to form her poem. Much of the poem is indeed quotations and allusions, making it difficult for the reader to parse. One reason for this collage technique is that it mimics the vicissitudes, "malarial" mixes, and tensions of marriage itself. Voices compete; happiness, anger, and confusion war. Another is that, as Harold Bloom writes, "Moore chooses the collage because it is the most public of forms, creating a cacophony of commentary one hears about marriage." The many voices appear as a "great piece of choral music, a polyphony, one verging on cacophony but held in place by Moore's subtle harmonies." Finally, using the works of others allows Moore to remain somewhat removed. She does not take on the mantle of authorial power, instead distancing herself in order to emphasize the variety of opinions at play.

What role does the dialogue between "He" and "She" play in the poem?

Moore uses this dialogue, which mimics the back-and-forth of wedding vows, to allow her characters to speak for themselves, and thus reveal themselves as self-centered, proud, and bellicose. They go back and forth and never seem actually to respond to the other's complaints. They seem obtuse, petty; the passion they experienced in Eden is gone. Critics Keller and Miller explain, "[Moore is] dramatizing an argument in which neither side represents her own views, and neither wages the fight to be affectionate. The viciousness of this domestic skirmish...establishes Moore's dismay at the behavior of men and women in many marriages: both parties are nasty and self-serving, suggesting the 'impossibility' of any desirable 'amalgamation.'" They also observe how the dialogue is one type of the "disputation" set forth in the poem: "'Marriage,' then, contains at least two kinds of debate or 'disputation'—Moore's word for the arguments of the poem: one, the dramatized and primarily rhetorical exchange of her stylized characters, and two, the troubled but quieter argument Moore carries on with herself about the virtues and dangers of this relationship."