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Literary Analysis Of The Lion's Bride By Gwen Harwood

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Gwen Harwood’s poem The Lion’s Bride, written 1981 revolves around the time period when women were objectified as housewives whose only job was to breed and nurture children, as well as care for their husbands. This poem creates a vivid image about a lion who falls in love with the zookeepers daughter but fails to recognize her when she greets him on her wedding day, wearing her dress, and mistakes her for a ghost. In response to this misinterpretation, the lion proceeds to maul the woman and lies in wait for the zookeeper’s daughter to arrive and feed him. The underlining message behind this poem revolves around a man who believes he is caged by his lover’s father in response to the feelings the father doesn’t agree with, and on her wedding day, the lover feels as though he is destroying the woman because she is marrying someone else.

To ease into her poem, Harwood creates a vivid image for the reader about a zookeeper’s daughter coming daily with their “special bowl.” This refers to how the lion has the notion that the woman is forming a relationship with him through their mealtime together. In reference to this, the lion, which is the man, believes he is caged due to his belief that the zookeeper refuses to accept his feelings towards his daughter. Contextually, during Harwood’s time, women were expected marry men who were of their social class and who were believed could take care of them. Assuming the man’s persona is drudging and he is seen as filth in relation to depicting him like a lion, the daughter cannot marry or be seen with him because it may affect or shun her reputation. The poet chooses to include the connotation of a “special bowl” instead of explicitly stating how they share a meal together to signify how the man and woman are forced to hide their feelings until they are alone together at mealtimes. She leaves no doubt in the reader that the man is feeling this way because she refers to their meal as their “love feast,” highlighting how interconnected these two people are with one another. Furthermore, the man’s predicament refers back to Harwood’s time in that women were expected to act in a certain prim manner, and to be a lover to a man in a status below her would taint her reputation

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