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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND FINDING
4.1 Passion to be Loved in
The Lady’s ‘Yes’ THE LADY’S YES
1.
“Yes,” I answered you last night
2.
“No,” this morning, Sir, I say
3.
Colors seen by candlelight
4.
Will not look the same by day
5.
When the tabors played their best,
6.
Lamps above, and laughs below
7.
Love me sounded like a jest
8.
Fit for Yes or fit for No
9.
Call me false, or call me free
10.
Vow, whatever light may shine
11.
No man on your face shall see
12.
Any grief for change on mine
13.
Yet the sin is on us both
14.
Time to dance is not to woo
15.
Wooer light makes fickle troth
16.
Scorn of me recoils on you
17.
Learn to win a lady’s faith
18.
Nobly, as the thing is high
19.
Bravely, as for life and death
20.
With a loyal gravity
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21.
Lead her from the festive boards
22.
Point her to the starry skies
23.
Guard her, by your truthfull words
24.
Pure from courtships’s flatteries
25.
By your truth she shall be true
26.
Ever true, as wives of yore
27.
And her Yes, one said to you
28.
Shall be Yes for evermore
The Lady’s ‘Yes’ was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and first published at year 1844. The writer uses criticism approach to derive what the poem is
going to say, the writer tries to get some informations that support the poem but the informations is to get from out of the poem such as historical background. For the
example, Elizabeth Barrett Browning used poem to explore and challenge traditional Victorian roles for women, assessing the early influences on her work as expected
from a woman, her utterances are unstable. During the reign of Queen Victoria, a womans place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered by
society at large to be a sufficient emotional fulfilment for females. These constructs kept women far away from the public in most ways.
The rhyme scheme The Lady’s Yes is ababcdcd efef ghgh ijkl mnmn opop
.
In Thelady’s Yes clearly suggests that the poem’s voice is a well-mannered woman. In
Browning’s poemThe Lady’s ‘Yes, she ends her poem with the thought provoking stanza. This poem begins with a woman agreeing to spend the night with a man, and
then regrets her decision the next morning. As the poem progresses, Elizabeth tells men to learn to win a lady’s faith. Elizabeth also tells men to “guard” their ladies. In
this poem, there are many important messages that she tries to tell to society. In
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society, people do not respect each other and take people for granted. Men are cruel to women, and husbands fight with their wives. Browning explains that every woman
has same right as man, when a man is true, the woman will be true to him. Here woman’s passion to be loved in The Lady’s Yes truly will be explained
and there are some other passions in this poem. There are passion to have faith and passion to get the truth in this poem that seems like clue to explain woman’s passions
to be loved truly in The Lady’s ‘Yes’. a.
Passion to have faith in The Lady’s Yes Actually, everybody has a purpose in their lives, not only men but also the
women. Between men and women need faith. According to Encyclopedia Americana 1997: 848 faith means confidence and trust in another. Faith comes first but that it
should be followed by good works. The important things in faith are the element of trust, confidence, surrender, and submission. It means a woman has faith in a man.
Because faith is the key of everything. Faith does not come easily without any effort. It can be achieved by making a commitment between man and woman. It can be seen
from the following quotation: Yet the sin is on us both
Time to dance is not too woo Wooer light makes fickle troth
Scorn of me recoils on you Learn to win a lady’s faith
Nobly, as the thing is high Bravely, as for life and death
With a loyal gravity Stanza IV and V; Line 13-20
That statement shows how the woman gets faith. She tries to get the faith at a party. Because she knows that faith does not come by itself. So, she must learn and
try hard to get the faith from the wooer. Eventhough she has to struggle againts a
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wooer at party to has faith for her life and death. Actually, there is only one disturber at a party. It is the wooer.
b. Passion to get the truth in The Lady’s Yes
Truth means the quality or state of being true. Based on the explanation above, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. It means that truth is complicated.
To tell the truth to someone is not easy as turning over the palm of the hand. It needs a process to do so. Moreover, the genuine truth is not merely the real truth. It is the
matter of subjectivity and importance, from which side we sight the truth itself. Hence, we may say that there is no objective truth. Since the only way we can see it
through our individual perceptions. In this poem, the woman wants to tell us that she has a passion to find out the truth. She knows that to find the truth is not easy. It can
be seen from the following quotation: Lead her from the festive boards
Point her to the starry skies Guard her, by your truth full words
Pure from courtships flatteries By your truth she shall be true
Ever true, as wives of yore And her Yes one said to you
Shall be Yes for evermore Stanza VI and VII; Line 21-28
From the quotation above, we can see the woman is really looking for the truth and she is always trying to find it. She is looking for the truth by her truthful
words. From the analysis above, it can be concluded that a similar freedom of choice
as well as the ability for women to change their mind to convincingly argue for the equality between genders, particularly in a marriage in the poem, The Lady’s Yes.
Barrett Browning sought not only to assert her right to be a poet, but to be a poet who dealt with key social and political issues of the day: war, nationalism,
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industrialisation, slavery, religious controversy, the manipulation of power, and the fight for liberty on numerous fronts.
c. Woman’s Passions to be loved truly in The Lady’s Yes
The Lady’s Yes describe how the revolutionary concept of a woman behaving candidly, therefore causing a social commentary of the double standard of
expectations for a woman to have any sexual tinge to her feelings or stray from the traditional, societal norms. It is revealed in the first line and second line. Her
utterances: Yes and No are considered paradoxical.
“Yes,” I answered you last night “No,” this morning, Sir, I say
Colors seen by candlelight Will not look the same by day
Stanza I; Line 1-4 Actually, it explains many things, it is probably not about woman’s instability
but to know the mind state, the writer goes further to the second stanza. The writer believes the first stanza is about retelling her actions last night and this morning.
Yet the sin is on us both Time to dance is not to woo
Wooer light makes fickle troth
Scorn of me recoils on you
Stanza IV; Line 13-16 In this poem, the speaker is a woman. What to know next is her attitude of
expressing her feeling. From the poem’s form, her tone can be guessed from the bold words. Bold is used to give emphasis in text. In the poem’s context, it means that the
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woman gives emphasizes in those bold words. There are some parts in which the woman expresses her strong feeling.
There are indications as cursing sentence. The bold word you describes as if
she is pointing to the man whom she cursed, the man who scorned her. It can be assumed that the woman is upset. The bold word in:
By your truth she shall be true Ever true, as wives of yore
And her Yes, once said to you Shall be Yes for evermore
Stanza VII; Line 25-28 Her current state of mind is now clear; she is a calm dignified woman who is
disturbed by a man’s attitude. It is presumably because the man wants her to be his girl. Although the state of mind is clearly defined, it is not known yet whether the
man is the one to be blamed or not. The woman’s responses further is also still vague.
In the first stanza the woman in this poem wants to explain that last night, this gentleman asks her a question, and she told him yes. The next morning she changes
her mind to no. Things look different after step back from the excitement and have had time to reflect on them.
“Yes,” I answered you last night “No,” this morning, Sir, I say
Colours seen by candlelight Will not look the same by day
Stanza I; Line 1-4 The first stanza tell the woman’s unstable answers. The man asked her
something important, revealed at the man wants the woman to be his girl. The woman gives her reason why she changed her answer in line 3 and 4.
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When the tabors played their best Lamps above, and laughs below
Love me sounded like a jest Fit for Yes or fit for No
Stanza II; Line 5-8 There was music tabors are drums and a party. They may have been upstairs
laughs below. Everything was happy and exciting, and amid all that, when he said love me, it sounded like a joke, like something of no consequence. Her answer wasnt
meant to be taken in complete seriousness. Tabor is a small drum played with one hand while the other hand plays a
pipe. Tabors were used especially in the `Middle Ages. The word first appearance was in the 13th century, derived from Old French word tabour. It looks like this
word is used as a filler for explaining other important keywords. The author uses personification in first and second line of this stanza that explain about the essence of
good manner which always lies in a higher respected position than bad manner. She reckons something funny or enjoyable as a bad manner. What she mentions here is
not like comedy or entertainment but humiliating manner. The man proposed her in such an unconvincing way that she considered it as a joke, because of doing this as a
joke, she takes it lightly whether she wants to say yes or no at the moment. Call me false, or calll me free
Vow, whatever light may shine No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change on mine Stanza III; Line 9-12
Stanza III explains, that whatever that way is something viewed may be direct light of something. No man on man unpleasant facial expression will realize
something by seeing. Any intense sorrow for making or becoming different on her as woman choices.
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She changes her mind and says she doesnt love him. He may thinks shes just a broad fickle coquette who will sleep with or flirt with anybody. Whatever, she
doesnt care. She just wants to make sure that nobody is able to tell what happened and do not let anyone see her anger or disappointed because she changes her mine.
Yet the sin is on us both Time to dance is not to woo
Wooer light makes fickle troth Scorn of me recoils on you
Stanza IV; Line 13-16 The following stanza is the effect of taking the man’s proposal lightly. The
woman’s final response is to refuse the man’s proposal so that the man’s feeling must be hurt. However, the woman tells him not to reveal his sorrow towards the
other men. Here, she says that is their fault. Dancing and party is not a good time for true courtship. So if he scorns her for saying yes and then changing her mind, he
should understand that its partly his fault, too. He shouldnt have pursued her then. She shows some regret in playing a joke by saying Yet the sin is on us both.
Nevertheless, she makes a justification which positions the man in a stronger “who- to-blame” person line 2 and 3 of fourth stanza. At the last line in this stanza, she
cursed the man that all of his actions are soon return to himself. Learn to win a lady’s faith
Nobly, as the thing is high Bravely, as for life and death
With the loyal gravity Lead her from the festive boards
Point her to the starry skies Guard her, by your truthfull words
Pure from courtship’s flatteries Stanza V and VI; Line 17-24
Stanza VI, the author use hyperbole in line 12, point her to the starry skies. It explains that how high man should be respect to woman.There is a change of the
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poem’s way of telling in this stanza. If stanza I-IV retells her story regarding the woman’s rejection to a man’s proposal, stanza V-VII tells about the woman’s advice
to man. It is about how to treat a lady and win her. The woman suggests that every man should earn woman’s trust in order to win her love. The trust can be earned by
having excellent moral character and courage of life and death with a faithful seriousness.
By your truth she shall be true Ever true, as wives of yore
And her Yes, one said to you Shall be Yes for evermore
Stanza VII; Line 25-28 The last stanza is the conclusion of stanza I-IV and stanza V-VI. For stanza I-
IV, to inform hints that should be given by the man to make the woman accept his proposal. For stanza V and VI, the last stanza is to reveal the benefit of the woman’s
advice. If man earns woman trust then she shall be true to a man. Then if man asks woman for her love, man can be sure that woman truly means it when she says yes.
Shall be acceptance for from now until the end of time or the end of somebody’s life. Thus, the word you here has double meaning; refers to the man who proposed her to
be his girl and every man who reads her advice. By looking at the above elaborations, the poem at least have two parts of
meaning. The first meaning is the story of a lady who refused a man’s proposal. The second meaning is the advices of a woman towards men about how to win their love.
In this poem, the poet’s effort is to characterize the lady as a noblewoman. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was always interested in the position of women
in society, and throughout her career she wrote challengingly and combatively about the need for gender equality. In her youth she was an ardent admirer of the work of
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Mary Wollstonecraft, whose controversial book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792 emphasised the ways in which middle-class women were denied any
proper education and were therefore made unfit for meaningful roles in society. It was
Published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was the first great feminist treatise. Wollstonecraft preached that intellect will always govern and
sought to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of
sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonimouswith epithets of weakness.
Another of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s main points in her poem is that men are deceivers. This idea corresponds to many things in the Victorian period of how
women were treated and viewed by men. Men falsely flattered women into marriage; they thought that they could easily manipulate them into being their property. Men
also tricked women into thinking that their position in society was respectable and natural.
Women were taught that it was normal for their place to be in the home, married and raising children. Elizabeth’s poem shows that women were not as
content with their position in society as men assumed that they were. Women were tired of being treated as though a man’s proposal was the greatest honor that they
were capable of receiving, and that they barely deserved even that. Browning shows that women were aware of their position in society and that they were not fooled by
man’s flattery.
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4.2 Passion to Love in
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