Amitej Babra

Mrs. Regnier

Honors English 9

November 15, 2019

Sonnet 138 Analysis Writing

In lines 1-4 of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138, the character is shown to believe what his love says,

displaying a sort of gullible nature, and shows that he is getting used, though he knows she lies, as seen in

line 3. Once again, in line 2, he “believes” that she is made of truth, but actually knows otherwise. In lines

3-4 he is actually revealing that his love would think of him as “unlearned”, or an “untutored youth”.

In the next stanza of sonnet 138, the character wonders about how his love would think of him as

young, and how his love is “vainly thinking” when she doesn’t even know what he knows about her. She

knows how his best days were in the past, showing how he has grown old, he still gives her credit for the

lies she would speak about him, once again showing his foolish, gullible manner. Giving her credit for the

lies, is a result of the “simple truth suppressed”, which means they both are hiding the truth.

He wonders why she doesn’t admit to being unfaithful, and why he doesn’t admit that he is old.

This is possibly because the aging has caused them both to hide their faults and “suppress the truth”.

“Loves best habit is in seeming trust, and age in love loves not to have years told.” This means how the

more that their relationship ages, they wanted to hide their mistakes over the years, causing the lies told.

Finally, the last two lines summarize how them telling lies sort of keeps the love alive and how

the lies hide their each respective faults, therefore making the relationship fake, but more loving.

Overall, the theme I see from this sonnet, is the theme of trust, and how relationships can’t

survive without trust. I agree with this, because when he discovers the lies his love tells about him, he

realizes how she is unfaithful and this slowly ruins their relationship, just because neither of them are

trustworthy to each other.