1. A Wife in London
by Thomas Hardy

2. TRAGEDY AND IRONY
Using a dictionary look up and define, in your book, the words Tragedy and Irony. Look back at the letter and telegram. Which is the tragedy? Can you think of any way that the receipt of these letters could be ironic?

3. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English novelist and poet
Critical of much in Victorian society
Interested in social reform
Felt socially inferior and believed that social class held people back
Many of his poems deal with themes
of disappointment in love and life

4. What is this poem about?
In this poem a wife is waiting at home in London for news of her husband who is fighting in South Africa in the Boer War. Fog is filling the London streets when there is a knock at the door and a messenger arrives with news…

5. LANGUAGE
A messenger's knock cracks smartly,     Flashed news is in her hand     Of meaning it dazes to understand  Though shaped so shortly:     He--has fallen--in the far South Land
How do the words used here help us to understand the impact of the news on this woman? What kind of news is this?

6. LANGUAGE
Why is it relevant that London is foggy when the woman receives this news? What do you think the fog represents?

7. I – The Tragedy
Why would the fog be bad around the river?
She sits in the tawny vapour  That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled,  Behind whose webby fold-on-fold  Like a waning taper  The street-lamp glimmers cold.
What it the effect of this description?
getting smaller

8. What technique is this? What does it make us think of?
I – The Tragedy
A messenger's knock cracks smartly,  Flashed news in her hand  Of meaning it dazes to understand  Though shaped so shortly:  He—he has fallen—in the far South Land…
How is the shock of the news emphasised in this stanza?
Why does Hardy use an elipsis here?

9. II – The IRONY
Is there more than one possible meaning here?
'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,  The postman nears and goes:  A letter is brought whose lines disclose  By the firelight flicker  His hand, whom the worm now knows:
Technique?
Effect?
Can you see a rhyming pattern across the four stanzas?

10. II – The IRONY
What do you think this phrase means?
Fresh -- firm--penned in highest feather --  Page-full of his hoped return,  And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn  In the summer weather,  And of new love that they would learn.
Brake and burn = woods and stream
Why is it important that this stanza end with a full stop?

11. Think for yourself
What is the significance of the weather in the poem? Which is the most horrific image in the poem? How does it contrast to the euphamism “he has fallen”? Explain how the poet uses techniques to show the impact of the telegram on the woman? How does Hardy set the mood in the first stanza?

12. Writing about it
Point The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death. Evidence Technique Explanation Reader (effect on)

13. Writing about it
The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death. The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.” Technique Explanation Reader (effect on)

14. Writing about it
The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death. The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.” This could be a metaphor for the way that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London. Explanation Reader (effect on)

15. Writing about it
The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death. The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.” This could be a metaphor for her grief, having received the news of her husband’s death. Hardy seems to be suggesting that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London. She is trapped in her grief. This links to the idea in the first stanza of the fog being like a web. Reader (effect on)

16. Writing about it
The poet uses the fog in London to emphasise how the woman feels trapped in her grief having received the news of her husband’s death. The fog is described as “webby” in the first stanza. In the third stanza we are told the “fog hangs thicker.” This could be a metaphor for her grief, having received the news of her husband’s death. Hardy seems to be suggesting that her grief has surrounded her, as the fog has surrounded London. She is trapped in her grief. This links to the idea in the first stanza of the fog being like a web. This leaves the reader with a gloomy sense that this woman is isolated by her grief. It is even more poignant, then, when in this third stanza she received a letter from her dead husband. Hardy seems to be reminding us of the awful ironies there sometimes are in life.

17. Think for yourself
What is the significance of the weather to the poem? Which is the most horrific image in the poem? How does it contrast to the euphamism “he has fallen”? Explain how the poet uses techniques to show the impact of the telegram on the woman? How does Hardy set the mood in the first stanza?

18. London fog Read the extract you have been given.
You need to answer the following questions (these are similar to the exam questions you will be given).
How can the writer tell that people are unhappy in the fog?
What do we learn from the extract about the what it is like to be in the fog? You should write about:
The things that the fog is compared to;
The words the writer uses to describe the fog.