The Changeling Poem Analysis

The poem, in brief, is about the struggle the speaker faces as he prepares for war and attempts to explain to his lover how important honor is to him, surpassing even his feelings for her. It is written creatively, with a unique style. The poem is also personal and temporal, a trait of poems of this era. The poem is written in a conversational tone and is read as if by a male writer to a female lover. Lovelace weaves poetic techniques such as assonance, and metaphor together to create a good rhythm, and a theme based upon honor.
The first stanza is to assure her that, however deep his love for her, his need for honor is deeper . The speaker batters himself in order to possibly disperse his lover’s anguish by crying out “Tell me no,

The young innocent girl is going through a rough time in her life. She lost her brother because of the war but is too young to comprehend how people grieve in different forms. Her father, for example, is in denial and will not get over the death of his son. The transformation of the closet comes into play when the young girl is trying to seek her father’s attention because she craves his love and affection. She figures out that if she dresses up in clothes that give her features to resemble a male, then her father pays more attention to her. The closet transforms the way her father perceives her and allows him to cope with the grief of losing his son by being comfortable with the presence of a male figure. The closet also transforms the young girl into something that her father actually wants to pay attention to and therefore giving her personal satisfaction of being wanted. The obstacle that comes in between the young girl getting transformed by the closet is the kitchen and her parents. The kitchen is a transformation of her obligations that her parents have set for her to mentally have. Her parents believe that a woman’s place in the world is the kitchen and to serve her husband who is the financial provider of the family. The problem with the closet’s transformation effect on the young girl is that she is completely taken away from who she really is as a person because the young girl is forced to dress up as a boy to get the attention she desperately wants from her father. The negative effect of the kitchen’s transformation, is that the kitchen forces the young girl to believe that she is worth nothing in this world and that her rest of her life will be spent serving her husband through the kitchen. This poem does an especially good job of highlighting early 20th century cultural