Loss in Poems

A comparison of different types of loss in the poems

Cousin Kate

* Loss of trust
*Loss of innocence, loss of trust, 'He changed me like a glove'
*Loss of social status "Call me an unclean thing"
However, the speaker articulates a strong sense of injustice and victimization. 
First 3 stanzas sound like a typical lament, direction you expect the speaker to say 'My life over, everything is rubbish, I might as well as kill myself"
*End of poem the tone and the direction changes to one of triumph and implicit criticism of the narrow demeaning views of society.
*Ballad style, (like a song) rhyme scheme - make the reader again expect this to be a simple tale of woe, yet at the end the speaker reveals that she in fact is not devastated anymore by her experience. Rather, she is triumphant and rejoices that she has a child. She seems to have the moral victory
*Imagery - 'who might have been a dove' - accident/chance/potential that was robbed from her. She has lost her purity
'wore me like a silken knot' - sexual image, silk = emphasizes the temporary nature of her relationship with the lord, and how quickly he moved on to someone else
* Context: double standard of sexual morality: men were allowed to sleep with many different people but women would be ostracized if they were suspected of being impure.
*Poem was written in the 19th Century.... in that society, portraying a fallen woman in a positive way was a radical step. Would have been controversial. Rossetti herself championed the cause of fallen women. 

What has happened to Lulu?

* Loss of a loved one, loss of sibling..... could be compared to losing a sibling through death as it seems to be permanent. Speaker is a child....

*Loss of stability, this wrecks the normal routine of the child's home. Loss of childhood -  security, family cohesion anymore.

*Outside adult world images compared to inside childhood world images 

'shoe', 'rag doll' (childhood world)

Shoe suggests a hurried exit, and her leaving behind the trappings of childhood

'mother crying', 'engine roar' (adult world)

Hints of danger, that makes us worry what has happened to Lulu

Suggests anger and a sense of a world that the speaker cannot fully understand.

Also a ballad/like a song - repetition

The second and fourth line always rhyme... emphasizes how childlike and young the speaker is. 

Because it's a song, the speaker is never interrupted, the mother never answers her.

Suggests the absence of the mother figure and perhaps the mother's inability to explain what has happened >>> sense of loneliness as well as loss. 

Voice of the poem as becoming increasingly distressed/desperate as there are no answers. 

It could be seen as told by the adult version of the speaker looking back on this tragic moment which increases the sense of loss and the permanence of this loss.

Refugee Blues