A Wife In London

• A Wife In London structure

  Split into two parts - The Tragedy and The Irony - each contain two stanzas
• A Wife In London Context

  written in 1899 during the Boer war and could be applied to anybody who has gone through the same as them
• 'waning'

  depicts the hope dying out
• 'His hand, whom the worm now knows'

  shows that now that the man is dead a worm is eating him
• '- has fallen -'

  dashes show breaks in thought and then continuation
• 'tawny vapor' and 'fog hangs thicker'

  the first part is bookended by thoughts of fog which symbolize despair and doom
• '...' The ellipses at the end of the first part shows that everything is unfinished
• 'knocks cracks smartly'

  Fricatives reflect the sound of a shot which was probably what killed the husband
• 'The Tragedy'

  The wife finds out that her husband has died whilst fighting in the Boer war
• 'The Irony'

  The wife receives a letter from her husband detailing what they would have done together when he got back even though he died