Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poem has two speakers and their speech is differentiated by their specific accents. The unnamed friend from the rural area as the first voice runs into Amelia in town and comments on her new appearance and persona. Also in the first-person point of view, Amelia as the second speaker responds to the inquiries.
Form and Meter
The poem has six quatrains each with two rhyming couplets. It is written in anapestic tetrameter but several lines begin with an iamb.
Metaphors and Similes
The speaker uses the term “polish” as a metaphor for the new life Amelia has adopted away from the rural grime. Amelia refers to her friend as raw which is a metaphor for an uneducated and naïve countrywoman. A simile appears when the friend refers to Amelia’s hands in the past as paws to emphasize the ravages of rural living.
Alliteration and Assonance
The soft-spoken nature of Amelia’s speech is observed through the alliteration in the line “We never do work when we're ruined”.
Irony
The irony in the poem arises from the Victorian morality that renders women ruined if they seek independence as single working class ladies.
Genre
Satire
Setting
The poem is set in a town that is in steep contrast with the rural area where Amelia originally resided too.
Tone
The tone is satirical.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonists are the two women while the antagonist is the social convention that oppresses women in Victorian society.
Major Conflict
The conflict in the poem is Amelia acknowledging that to have an affluent and luxurious life she had to be “ruined” as per the societal standards.
Climax
The climax reaches when Amelia feistily tells her friend that she is too naïve and inexperienced to attain such luxury. This change in tone follows the relaxed manner she responded to the friend’s previous inquiries.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The casual conversation between the two women highlights the societal issues that limit their status as women. Accordingly alludes to the Victorian morality that judge women with different standards from their male counterparts.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The friend uses the metonymy “polish” to refer to Amelia’s new deluxe and sophisticated lifestyle.
Personification
Victorian society is personified with the ability to ruin a woman for exercising her sexual freedom.
Hyperbole
Amelia denotes the term “ruined” as it is used to refer to women who have embraced their sexual freedom in singlehood. The term is an exaggeration of this dynamic since the male counterparts are not branded as such in the same situation.
Onomatopoeia
The words “sigh” and “strut” are onomatopoeic.
