Literary Devices In Havisham

Written Commentary on Havisham

Love can drive people to say very strange things and do some stranger actions. Love could make people happy or can completely devastate them, depending on how their time with romance went. Most people end up on the lighter side of love, happily married but some have gotten on the darker side which could lead to some life ruining moments. There are plenty of reasons that someone could have a ruined image of love such as having their partner cheat on them, but in the poem named Havisham it was much worse. The author Carol Ann Duffy utilizes many literary devices in the poem Havisham to communicate the idea that love can ruin someone. We learn many ways love can ruin someone and what are the effects of it doing so. The author gives the reader many clues to what has happened to Havisham. To begin the

The reader can see one example of this in stanza 1. In the line “Ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with”. This can be viewed as imagery, because when the reader has read that it gives off a harsh image of literal ropes on the back of her hands. Once someone attempts to think of what that could be, the image that would pop up with be the veins on the back of people hands. Once people age the veins on the back of their hands pop up. This imagery was very well done as it keeps to the tone of the poem and it also functions as imagery that can be very sinister. Another example in the poem to show that she has aged is in stanza 2. “The dress yellowing”, this means that the white wedding dress has turned old become the color yellow. This is one of the biggest clues used in the poem to demonstrate that she has become old, that plenty of time has passed. The literary device used in this example can be also defined as imagery, as we can imagine the dress old, dirty and yellowing as the poem