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Mahum Kudia

Mrs. Mann

AP Literature--Block 2

27 November 2017

A Toxic Love

Severing something is to split it asunder, to destroy it-- completely and permanently. In

Modern Love by George Meredith, thats precisely what a married couple hopes to do with

their unhappy relationship. Within his poem, Meredith argues that an unhappy marriage is

venomous to those involved, and if not severed, will lead to the demise of those affected by it.

Meredith depicts a lack of happiness in the couples marriage, as throughout the poem,

both the husband and wife are miserable. The wife cries herself to sleep, a fact Meredith makes

clear when the poem says, she wept with waking eyes (1). The constant crying and

unhappiness of the wife, makes her husband miserable as well. The famous adage, misery loves

company could not be more fitting in this situation, as they are both making each other

increasingly more miserable.

In the poem, it is established that the couples marriage is dead. The cold, distant, and

somber tone, coupled with Merediths choice to use an overwhelming amount of death imagery,

makes this reality explicit. When the husband attempts to comfort his wife with his hands light

quiver by her head (2) as she cries, her resulting strangled mute(5) serves to illustrates how

the couple has lost the ability to communicate with, and comfort one another. The couple is so

distant from one another, that they can no longer talk to each other or relate how they feel. Their

interactions are nothing but muffled pulses (8)--dull, emotionless, distant, and cold--similar to
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how something sounds from a distance. This cold, emotionless, and distant tone, coupled with a

lack of warm, meaningful interactions between the couple, signifies the death of their marriage,

because a relationship with no communication is no relationship at all. Furthermore, the word

strangled signifies how the couple feels suffocated in their marriage. Similar to how people are

slowly strangled to death, the couples marriage is slowly killing them. Meredith establishes that

the couples relationship is dreadfully venomous..., like little gaping snakes (5, 7). This

metaphor illustrates how the couples failing relationship is slowly poisoning their lives, with the

misery and unhappiness it entails. The wife, with her giant heart of memory and tears (9), cries

herself to sleep every night. Her heart is filled with memories of love and joy--two emotions that

are now eclipsed by her relentless and unyielding sorrow, which stems from the fact that her life

is now an endless cycle of regret. Both husband and wife, as they lie in bed, look through their

dead black years,/ by vain regret scrawled over the blank wall (12-13). Merediths imagery

depicts how every night, the couple lies in bed together, and regrets the empty years they spent

together. The somber and regretful tone prevalent within these lines conveys the unpleasant

nature of the couples life together, and validates their desire for separation.

Towards the end of the poem, Meredith makes clear the couples desire to end their

relationship. Within their interactions, the couple is stone-still (7) and moveless (12).

Similar to how stone is cold and unyielding, the husband and wife are stiff, unmoving, uncaring,

and cold to one another. This diction and imagery further emphasizes that the couple knows they

have reached the end of their relationship. Meredith also builds a metaphor likening the couple to

sculptured effigies they might be seen/ upon their marriage tomb (14-15), which serves to

illustrate how the husband and wife are essentially corpses already, as they lay on their bed, stiff,
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distant, and unmoving. They feel trapped within their dead relationship, a relationship that is

slowly turning them to stone--both emotionally and physically. As they are now stone, forever

immortalized on the tomb that is their bed, they can do nothing but wait for the end that comes

with the sword that severs all (16). To put it simply, the couple knows their marriage is dead,

and are now praying for a way out. However, whether that end is death, or divorce, is ambiguous,

as Meredith doesnt specify within the poem how the couple wishes to end their marriage.

Within the poem, Modern Love, George Meredith criticizes the fact that people cannot

sever a toxic relationship at will. The poem was written in 1862, which places it five years after

divorce was made legal in England. However, even with the availability of divorce, people are

staying in their toxic marriages, as is clearly illustrated by the poem itself. The reason for this is

due to the fact that even with divorce, couples cannot do anything, as they are trapped, immobile,

moveless in their relationship and social standing. Divorce, after all, is looked down upon, and

so getting a divorce probably would not improve the quality of life. In fact, it might even make it

worse. The fact that people are unaccepting of a couple choosing to end their marriage because

its making them both suffer is the biggest criticism Meredith makes. As humans, we all have the

right to self-autonomy--this includes the ability to choose who we wish to live with. According

to Meredith, without this self-autonomy, we are nothing more than living corpses ourselves.
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Account of Revisions

Revisions I Made Rationale

Intro: Intro:
1. I tried to make the intro fluffier 1. It needed to be fancier. The original
2. Modified the thesis version was too simplistic and not
complex enough.
2. It needed to be more specific

BP 1: BP 1:
1. Split original bp 1 into 2 different 1. The essay needed reorganization to
paragraphs help it flow better, because the way it
2. Made this bp about demonstrating that was structured was confusing
the couple is unhappy 2. I needed more plot summary so that
the essay made sense. In the first draft,
I jumped straight into analysis without
any context. This needed to be
remedied.

BP 2: BP 2:
1. This paragraph focused on the death of 1. I needed to restructure my essay so it
their relationship reads better. Reorganizing it has
improved its quality and flow.

BP 3: BP 3:
1. This paragraph is about the ending the 1. I needed to restructure my essay so it
relationship reads better. Organizing it this way
enabled me to really take my time to
analyze and discuss.

Conclusion
1. I modified my existing conclusion to
make it more conclusion-y.
Conclusion:
1. My conclusion needed a lasting
impact and concluding tone, which it
didnt have before, as it was originally
supposed to be a body paragraph.

This essay was a lot of work for me, as I was not happy with the rough draft at all. My

writers workshop group was very helpful, as they gave me lots of feedback, so I knew where to
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focus my revisions. Sophie really helped me out by reading my essay as I was working on it and

giving me feedback to help it flow better, such as to make sure to analyze my quotes in body

paragraph two, as well as some basic proofreading. I believe that overall, writers workshop was

very helpful, and I am glad for the experience to be able to get help and give others that same

help.