Poetry Explication Living In Sin w/works cited - Essay Example

Readers may perceive Living in Sin by Adrienne Rich in various ways. Judging by the alone, in the perspective of a conservative reader the poemmay mean that the woman and man are living as husband and wife out of wedlock or that they are having an adulterous affair. In another point of view, the reader may identify the woman as an unhappy wife who believed that marriage would be bliss but in reality, the woman ends up to be the housecleaner while the man comes and goes as he pleases without minding to help the woman in her household chores.

The central theme in the poem based on the perspectives of different readers may be the realities of married life, disillusionment, regrets on marriage or an illicit relationship. The lines, “She had thought the studio would keep itself; no dust upon the furniture of love. Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal, the panes relieved of grime” (Rich 1083) suggests a woman expecting a romantic life similar to a fairytale princess who would not take care of putting the house or the studio in order reflecting the realities on her married life and giving the woman a reality check on her illusions of a worry-free married life or relationship.

The theme of the poem is supported by the tone and imagery used by the poet. Living in Sin’s tone is evidently that of regret. The lines, “Meanwhile, he, with a yawn, sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard, declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror, rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;” and “pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found a towel to dust the table-top, and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.” (1084) demonstrates that the woman regrets marriage or having a relationship with a man who wakes up in the morning leaving the woman to tend the house and the bed.

These lines also show the disillusionment of the woman that her married life or relationship she had would not be happy at all time, as she had imagined. Meanwhile, the element of imagery can be seen throughout the poem. The part of the poem stating, “A plate of pears, a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat stalking the picturesque amusing mouse had risen at his urging. Not that at five each separate stair would writhe under the milkmans tramp; that morning light” (1084) describes the scene in the dwelling place of the characters in the poem at five o’clock in the morning.

This account of the morning view in the poem’s setting is also detailed in the lines, “so coldly would delineate the scraps of last nights cheese and three sepulchral bottles;” (1084) depicting the remnants of the food and drinks the previous night. Another imagery in the poem is also seen in the lines, “Meanwhile, he, with a yawn, sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard, declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror, rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;” (1084) gives a picture of what kind of character the man in the woman’s life possesses.

The elements of metaphor and symbolism rely on the response of different readers on the poem. The metaphor in Living in Sin found in the lines, “By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly but throughout the night she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming like a relentless milkman up the stairs.” (1084) For a reader who interprets the poem as an account of a woman who is living with a man out of wedlock or having an affair, this metaphor may mean that the woman regrets to be in a relationship because she is left to do chores in the morning but later on remembers her love for the man in the evening after finishing chores.

On the other hand, to a reader who deduces the poem to be about an unhappy wife daylight likened to a relentless milkman shows remorse of the wife on her duties during the daytime and the rest of the lines show that her duties to her husband at night replaces the regrets she had felt in the morning. Symbolism in the poem can be seen in the line, “no dust upon the furniture of love” (1084) which for a reader thinking of an extramarital affair would interpret this line as the ideal of the woman that marriage or relationship should be sacred hence spotless.

While for readers seeing the woman as an unhappy wife see this as symbolic for the reality that marriage and love is not always pleasurable.CITED WORKSRich, Adrienne. “Living in Sin.” The Wadsworth anthology of poetry. Ed. Jay Parini. Toronto: Cengage Learning, 2005. 1083-1084. Print.