Wordsworth And Writing His Defense

Nature, in combination with maternal passion reveals Wordsworth’s admiration and possible envy for the strength and power of love that a woman possesses. This is a possible admission that he is weaker and less fortunate than Vallon. Although he left her and caused her much anguish, he believes that because of the maternal bond she has with their daughter, she has been able to find peace and not regret when she reflects back on the situation, where as he cannot look back with out regret. He wants to have the love, both to give and to receive, that only a mother is able to have with her child.

When the woman is introduced, she is portrayed with the thorn, pond, and hill expressing her connection to them. She sits between the hill and pond, "And to herself she cries/ Oh misery! Oh misery!/ Oh woe is me! Oh misery" (64-66). She obviously goes to the spot everyday all year long. The poem states, "she is known to every star/ And every wind that blows (69-70). The stanza is about moving time. Considering Wordsworth’s situation with Vallon, we could assume that Wordsworth looks back in time (another popular theme within his works) and revisits the place and time that he lost his daughter and lover, just as frequently as Martha Ray and Vallon.

When making a judgment, or determining an opinion, you must place your self in the subjects’ mind and consider the situation from their point of view. For example: You hear a story about a woman with cancer and her sixteen-year-old daughter who refuses to comfort her. Immediately you think that the daughter is selfish and uncaring. However, you then discover that the woman has never really been a mother to her daughter; she spent most of her child’s youth at bars and on dates. The daughter had been passed from father to father, never having any kind of emotional relationship with her mother. Now it is up you to decide whether the daughter is in fact being selfish by not helping her mother through her illness, or if it is the mother who is being selfish by asking the daughter to be there because it is now convenient for her to be a mother. In order for you to make a decision, you must leave yourself and become either the mother or the daughter. Now, since you are in their mind, you are able to back up your decision based on both fact and emotion; and in effect, when you retell the story, it will seem bias because you now have an emotional connection with the subject. In a spiritual sense, you have made an “upward progression from soul, to consciousness to mind”; and having been through this, your understanding of your self has changed and you are now able to think in a new way. (Conger). This is the way Wordsworth was able to write these poems from a mother’s perspective.

I believe that subconsciously, Wordsworth is imagining Betty Foy as Vallon, years after their affair. He hopes that like Betty Foy, Years from now, she will be content without Wordsworth, or any man, to provide care and support and that time will indeed heal her wounds. Once again, Wordsworth makes it obvious that he believes the greatest love of all can be found in becoming a mother, and that love is powerful enough to sustain happiness as long as the child is near. Betty Foy "Could lend out at that moment’s store Five years of happiness or more To any that might need it." (144-6). Several years down the line, would Annette Vallon (or Wordsworth himself) be so fortunate? Wordsworth may hoping for the best — if happiness is a possibility, so is the appeasement of his own pain, Vallon’s pain, and his own guilt.

As a fantasy, The Idiot Boy may function as a subconscious rationalization for Wordsworth’s leaving his impregnated lover. Overall, the poem conveys the unadulterated love of a mother for her child, whether he is an idiot or not. The abandoned mother then, whether she is Betty Foy or Annette Vallon, may reap the benefits of this relationship. And the father of this c

Some topics in this essay:
Idiot Boy, Martha Ray, Annette Vallon, Boy Thorn, Maybe Wordsworth, Betty Foy, Martha Ray’s, Prelude Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, Vallon Wordsworth, martha ray, idiot boy, betty foy, annette vallon, stephen hill, maternal instinct, vallon wordsworth, martha ray vallon, daughter selfish, wordsworth makes, selfish uncaring, lover annette vallon, annette vallon wordsworth, importance poetry life, thorn idiot boy,