Marriage (Poem) Literary Elements

Moore; Adam and Eve ("He" and "She")

Free Verse

Simile:
-"the heart rising / in its estate of peace / as a boat rises / with the rising of the water"
-"Alive with words, / vibrating like a cymbal / touched before it has been struck"
-"a fire / 'as high as deep / as bright as broad / as long as life itself'"
-"a wife / with hair like a shaving brush"

Metaphor:
-the nightingale refusing to sing is a metaphor for Eve refusing to do what Adam wants her to do
-Adam calls his union with Eve a fire and she calls it water; critics Keller and Miller note, "The contrast between his metaphor for their union as consuming fire and hers as peaceful water foreshadows the differences that lead the man and the woman into verbal battle later in the poem."

Alliteration:
-"requiring public promises / of one's intention / to fulfill a private obligation"
-"constrained in speaking of the serpent - / shed snakeskin in the history of politeness"
-"the central flaw / in that first crystal-fine experiment"
-"a crouching mythological monster / in that Persian miniature of emerald mines"

-Moore's tone is ironic, especially as she begins her poem by calling marriage not an institution but "an enterprise," which has a less-than-sacred connotation
-It is ironic that the supposedly scientific discipline of psychology, which is intended to illuminate human behavior, fails so miserably when it comes to love and why people marry
-It is ironic and contradictory that the man's solution to the woman wanting to be alone is to "be alone together"
-It is ironic that the "spiked hand" which sounds painful and oppressive is "the mark of independence, / not of bondage"
-There is irony and sarcasm in Moore's comment that men have power and "sometimes one is made to feel it" because of simply how entrenched patriarchy was at the time
-It is ironic that neither Adam nor Eve can see that it is their own self-love and not necessarily the other person's flaws that preclude their having a successful marriage
-Moore's combination of Webster's phrasing "Liberty and union / now and forever" is intended to be ironic in its paradox and its historical context of not giving slaves their liberty (see Analysis for more)

Poetry

Moore's own time (early 20th century); the Garden of Eden

Varies. Mostly cynical, ironic, disdainful, incisive

Pro/Ant: Adam and Eve

There is a micro conflict between Adam and Eve in terms of who will "win" their arguments and prevail in the power dynamic of their relationship, and there is a macro conflict in Moore trying to figure out why people would even want to enter into this "interesting impossibility."

The harsh and cutting dialogue between Adam and Eve is the zenith of the poem. Moore's ruminations and descriptions of the two leads up to this, and afterward it is a similar exploration of the impossibility of "amalgamation."

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-"that invaluable accident / exonerating Adam": an understatement because this "accident" is the Fall of Man, the expulsion from the Garden, the rupture with God, the damning of humans to a life of strife and the need for redemption
-"men have power / and sometimes one is made to feel it": certainly an understatement given the history, pervasiveness, and potency of patriarchy

Refer to the analysis section of this study guide where almost every single one of the allusions is identified and explained.

Metonymy:
-the wedding ring refers to marriage
-the "stars, garters, buttons / and other shining baubles" refer to women overall

Synecdoche:
-the "spiked hand" refers to a person whose love is painful to the other

-"the strange experience of beauty; its existence is too much; it tears one to pieces / and each fresh wave of consciousness is poison"

-"It clothes me with a shirt of fire": Adam's response to the nightingale not singing for him
-Adam says he is dazzled by the apple to the extent that "the shining of the earth / is but deformity"
-"a wife is a coffin"

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