Notes- Let No Charitable Hope PDF

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These revision notes are A* at A Level, providing rich and extensive critical analysis of the poem. These notes go beyond A Level, noting insightful points for different aspects of the poem, namely the language, structure, themes, rhyme and imagery. They cover the whole poem in immense detail and ar...

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NOTES: “Let No Charitable Hope” by Elinor Wylie LANGUAGE:  “Now let no charitable hope” “confuse my mind with images” -> From the off Wylie commences with the imperative tense, in a headstrong manner: she forbids us from pitying her in an urgent, almost desperate way even, perhaps obscuring the fact that if we were to sympathise with her it might crack her tough exterior and destroy all her efforts of moving on. We observe she does not want anyone else’s opinions affecting her and she ardently refuses to slip through her protective armour into her brain, as they would weaken her resolve. The adverb - “Now” - implies she had hope before and this hope may have provoked previous suffering: perchance it was that she thought equality was achievable but has “Now” realised it is pointless. The second quotation - “confuse my mind with images” – clearly states she does not want any false hope, as it brings the emotional baggage of high expectations which mean big disappointments and besides, she does not want to be put off her goal of not hoping anymore. Nevertheless, we sense she almost wants this order to be broken: by uttering the word hope she gives away her thoughts which have been ushered to the back of her brain and almost seems to dare us to give her exactly that. Wylie frames the “charitable hope” as not being a durable solution to problems but as instead offering a temporary respite to help people get back on track, as “charity” depends on people’s kind emotions and these are fleeting and wear off eventually. Analogically Wylie may use hope as a provisional plaster to help her through the deceiving reality and now this poem is the transition to the inevitable facing the facts: she rips that plaster off that was distracting her from the bulging wound beneath, this wound being her life. Given the inescapable reality, Wylie infers hope is useless as her dreams will never be realised and unnatural, given to those in need. It aggrieves the reader to see that to live her life, or more precisely to survive is to stop hoping altogether and we wonder: what is life without hope?  “Of eagle and antelope” “I am in nature none of these” -> The implementation of two different animals is used purposely to illustrate

many ideas: it can be to say she does not oversee everything like an eagle and does not want to be seen as eagle, as majestic and brave yet she does not wish to be portrayed as the hunted antelope either; she is not strong like a predator nor weak like prey - she finds herself in a liminal space, between the two just as she spent her days spread between living in the UK and living in the USA, not rooted in to a place or home but she’s OK with that. “I am in nature none of these” – This can be saying that she does not fit in with the social hierarchy: the eagle may be the man and the dominated antelope is the female which may explain why does not categorise herself as the “eagle” or “antelope” because she wants to be free from society. Especially given that the eagle is the USA’s mark of freedom, she feels she is “in nature none of these” because she is not free. The fact it is representative of the USA may be to say that what she truly wants is for her parents and old friends in America to be proud of her perhaps? Yet these animals may do like she does with hope, secretly yearn to be like an eagle as they are fine living alone or they may symbolise perfect marital coexistence as they mate for life, and she desires that. Then the “antelope” can also represent a freedom from convention as they can outrun the dominating powers yet also flock together for protection – she also longs to be part of a family or team. The false hope had made her believe she was an eagle or antelope but now she knows that hope is not for her – hope would only take away from reality and what she has already managed to accept. She includes things that are bigger than her – nature, life – with the second quotation we see she misses out on being the two types of free and the two forms of togetherness.  “The years go by in single file” “outrageous and austere” -> The first quotation shows two sides: one can show the monotony of her life; two, it can be that she has moved on just like time, no matter what the problem is she pushes through. Mostly though, it seems she admires the order and repetitiveness of time, contrary to her past where some years pass in “austerity” and others are “outrageous”, leaving the country and going through three marriages. This all contrasts to “The years go by in single file”: the years pass inevitably but some have different guises. She

has realised that no matter the hardship time still goes by - this may be a shoot of optimism and acceptance.  “born alone.” -> This phrase makes the world sound bleak and cold, showing how she is cynical of the world and generalises this to make it relevant to all humans – this is how the human cycle works: we enter without anyone – and possibly without love nor support, as was the case for her given she had familial problems. She expresses her despair of her whole existence like a statement and may phrase it as something we all go through to convince herself that she can survive solitude without husband, because after all she did it when she was born. The syntactical arrangement of the word - “alone” – makes it all the more effective: it is placed at the end of the sentence, finished off by a final full stop inferring this is how we leave the world too, including us as she poses herself at times as ‘humanity’ itself. IMAGERY:  “But none has merited my fear” “And none has quite escaped my smile” -> The word “none” is triumphant: she is proud of this, and the finality to the word infers that amidst the uncertainty of the future the only definitive thing is her resolve to be afraid of nothing and not let any injustice escape her smile. The conjunction - “But” - is the Volta of a depressing tone to an optimistic one: life goes on so just get on with it, this attitude reflected by how she moves between continents to try and live her best life. The next conjunction - “And” – shows how everything weighs on her and the difficulties of her life – social and gender injustices perhaps – progressively get bigger but she knows she will be able to deal with whatever is thrown in her path. The compelling choice of verb “merited” – suggests that anything that manages to make her scared deserves a prize, and by giving her opponent value she automatically dons herself with more worth. Just as her opponent will “merit” a prize, she will wear her pain and the hurdles she has overcome proudly on her smile, like trophies and medals of honour for courage and resilience, just as a soldier would at war. However, it may be that just in public does she disguise her pain and in private plod on despite the lack of joy in her life, these trophies and medals also forming part of her delicately created

mask. The satiric line including the words “quite escaped” is her ironically laughing at people who think concepts such as inequality of the sexes had escaped her notice: the verb “escaped” infers it is as if people had tried to get things past her and disguised the truth with lies but she sees through it. Moreover, by employing the word “smile” shows that although men and society may degrade women physically, they cannot touch their spirit, that is untouchable. THEME:  FEMINIST “being woman, hard beset” “squeezing from a stone” “nourishment” -> [It is important to note that this is in the 19th century] She does not make an effort to pity women but shows how they must push through, demonstrating their perseverance and treatment in life. This can possibly be part of why she doesn’t want anyone’s - men’s? pity but respect for being so strong despite being “hard beset”. She may write this as a warning to others of the lesson she learnt – as a woman you shall endure hardship. From “Now” we see she made the mistake and doesn’t need anyone’s social or welfare help and the quotation “squeezing from a stone” depicts her endless toil for little compensation. She also uses humour here, - a dependable source of solace for feminist writers - as squeezing from a stone is just impossible to gain anything and unsatisfactory to say the least: it is so depressing it is funny. This draws our attention to how humour is a well-known mechanism one may revert to when there is so much frustration - “squeezing” - and exasperation. Could it also be that her future is as bleak as a rock and unmalleable to carve into what she desires? It may also be a play on words: society’s status as a woman is set in stone, their fates are circumscribed and it is impossible to change one’s position in terms of the social strata and economically. TONE:  “fear” “smile” -> There is a mixture of hope, despair, cold humour and a hint of happiness being achievable. She tries to downplay her pain and suffering by saying that in reality she did not suffer enough to truly be afraid we feel she is rather sour but has accepted what has happened

despite not being completely – “quite” - over it. She has her fight face on and as hard as it is she can still smile albeit bitter and close to tears. There are slip ups showing beneath her tough exterior lurk traumas of her past: we think her smile must be shallow as we wonder what can you smile about without hopes and dreams? Has she given into society and accepted women as being of less worth by smiling in numb acceptance? Or is her smile an act of fiery defiance? I feel either there is too much pain from her life to fully be able to move on or she is retelling everything for one last time and getting all her grief out of her to take a step in a better direction from her past. Life is presented as a task and a drag but she is hard on herself and tries to convince herself there is not anything she cannot handle. There seems to be some detachment at times – “woman” “human” – to perhaps disassociate from the painful emotions triggered within her; maybe this generalisation serves to be her hard on herself and on her gender to show women can withstand pressure and hardship. These contrasting words may serve to depict her internal battle against utter loneliness. STRUCTURE:  “hope/ confuse… images/ Of eagle” “I was, being human, born alone,” “I am, being woman, hard beset” -> The enjambment in the first three lines makes it go at quicker pace than the rest of the poem: the poet wants to whir past it so it is less painful dismissing all hope perchance. Then she implements commas before she goes back on her word and hopes again, as if cheating herself into committing to her promise. The other effect of these commas work to give her tone conviction and strength, as if stating facts, which she is. She also conveys the evolution of her past self to her present strengthened character, which the parallel between lines reinforces that she has moved on from the past and does not cross back to revisit it. The repetition of ‘I’ illustrates how she is alone, without a husband but is not afraid to show it, she is not ashamed of this but rather seems proud of this fact. The unevenness of the stanzas – there are three – makes us uneasy, we are waiting, like her perhaps for something more beyond this feeling of dissatisfaction. The stanza progression can denote her systematic evolution of life, getting

more confident and resistant after each year but she still wants more from it. Circling back to the punctuation alienating words can be like her from the world or the three commas and one full stop can show some autobiographic elements of her life: three marriages and divorces then nothing more for her. The middle phrases “being human” “being woman” globalises herself as the human and female race, and these responsibilities she has placed upon herself anchor her to Earth, and give her purpose.  RHYME ABAB “fear” “beset” “smile” “stone” “get” -> The rigidity of phonetics denotes how Wylie feels limited by society, being a woman and human she only has so much social mobility. This reflects the patriarchal standard of the 20th century society, where rich white men came first – always – and women secondary to this. She also implies there was censorship: she is not free to express herself, write nor live how she would like, in her present nor in her future. She is never able to break with this and this is mirrored by how she never breaks the rhyme scheme, yet it is balanced and orderly perhaps demonstrating that despite the restraints she can handle it. It may also be that she has accepted and come to terms with her fate and misery rather than succumb to pointless mental anguish. LINKS TO OTHER LITERATURE:  ‘Love is not blind’ – Edna St Vincent Millay said ‘well I know what is this beauty men are babbling of, I wonder only why they prize it so.’ Like Wylie’s “images” she does not want to just be known for beauty....