'Mariana' is a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson published in 1830. This was an early phase of the Victorian era, a time when there was a plethora of social upheavals in England and Europe. As a composition, "Mariana" is a beautiful yet haunting lyrical narrative, with themes of loneliness, isolation and rejection. It conforms to the social context of her time, in which women lost their marital potential after offending society's predilection for perfection. Mariana becomes a silhouette of herself, calling and desiring Angelico. However, examining it with a modern stance raises crucial questions. The central tenets of feminism dictate that the affiliation between women and men has almost always been unequal and tyrannical. Furthermore, all major institutions have been characterized by male domination, such as the economy, political system, family and religion. The issue at hand, in light of these concerns, is twofold. The first part investigates whether Mariana is conforming to conventions and upsetting the values of feminism. The second concerns intention; that is, did Tennyson intend this violation of feminist doctrines to enlighten society? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To a large extent, the speaker of “Mariana” is a victim of romanticism. He describes his emotional journey and the resulting pain of rejection. Embellished expressions were used to alert the reader to the extent of his suffering. Tennyson may have used these techniques to communicate the extent of his pain. The first stanza focuses on nature and its deterioration. Tennyson used the pathetic fallacy, a form of personification, to depict a landscape of decay that represents the gradual deterioration of Mariana's cognitive state. "With the blackest moss the flowerpots were thickly crushed, all of them:". Tennyson intensifies the sadness of Mariana's circumstances with his use of irony. The growth of moss contrasted with Mariana's restless state suggests that desperation also grows in nature. Furthermore, flowers are the symbol of love, as a prominent psychologist once stated “flowers are a perfect replica of human life”. Thus, the flowers may embody Mariana's quixotic hopes, and the vase, which is "often encrusted," is the growing despondency that has imprisoned her vitality and suffocated her faith. Alternatively, it could be suggested that Tennyson is showing how Mariana is dependent on her lover, Angelico. Moss could represent Mariana as it acts as a symbiotic organism for other organisms. This may offend the fundamental principles of feminism, as it argues that all women should be autonomous and self-sufficient. However, Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argue that the need to belong to a partner is a fundamental human desire, which forms and maintains meaningful interpersonal relationships. Therefore, Mariana's desire to be loved extends universally to all individuals and is not a sign of patriarchal indoctrination. Instead, it is a desire that all human beings experience and Tennyson provides the possibility for this emotional appetite to be recognized and therefore accepted in society. The location of the moated grange is not specified, so the theme of solitude and remoteness is universalized and amplified. The images of Mariana eternally lingering in a dark realm of melancholy create an eerie atmosphere. The intertwining of the psychological and physical worlds demonstrates the psychosomatic disorder that Mariana is experiencing and suggests that her mental structure is compromised. “The broken sheds had a.
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