Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The river God
- STORY
- says he'll drown anyone who isn't
careful
- River God says he likes
it when people go
swimming
- especially women
- May be old but he's still
powerful
- A woman goes swimming
and drowns when she's too
close to the cliffs
- Body is tangled in
weeds on the river bed
- River God calls her
beautiful and wants to look
after her
- Doesn't want her to
leave and says he
will never forgive
her if she does
- FORM AND STRUCTURE
- Enjambment makes it
flow like water
- Dramatic Monolouge
- Uses regular rhyming
couplets to give a
songlike quality
- At the beginning he is presented
as kind and friendly
- Becomes more
threatening and
possessive
- emphasised by hidden warnings near
the end and ominous final line
Anmerkungen:
- OMINOUS: giving the impression that something bad is going to happen
- MY IDEAS
- It uses a euphemism to describe
how he drowned the woman but
making it sound more innocent that
he is
- "So I brought her down here"
- The poet creates an image of a
harsh and powerful old God
who is proud and arrogant much
like OZYMANDIAS
- He could be presented as a male character
because they had lots of power over
women in the time era of the poem and the
poets life
- could be suggesting how
she feels men treat women
- I think the poet is saying that in a
heterosexual relationship that men
generally have the most power and can be
seen to be drowning the women in their
ways of life
- They can be seen to be taking away the woman's life without actually
killing them
- Much like the women in 'my last duchess' and 'les grands siegneurs'
- LANGUAGE
- contrasts
- old smelly river contrasts
with beautiful women
- river God uses affectionate language
which contrasts with harsh reality of
women's death making it more shocking
- euphemism
- river God suggests the woman is
sleeping rather than dead
- Uses ambiguous
language and images
of love rather than
death
- suggests he's deluded into
thinking she might love him in
return
- Like Deborah and God :p
- Power and objectification
- River God seems
desperate to keep
women on the river
bed
- Possessive over her
and doesn't want her
to leave
- Calls her beautiful and
focuses on her appearance
showing he values it
- Image of appearance also
seems a bit sexual
- FEELINGS AND ATTITUDES
- Love
- River God desires women
- Obsessed by
woman's beauty
- Says he wants
to care for her
- Arrogance
- He's powerful but careless
- treats dying
humans like toys
- He considers
human life to be
quite insignificant
- Selfishness
- Possessive over the woman
- doesn't want to
share the woman