Hello everybody and welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Miss Halliday and I will be teaching you today.

In today's lesson, we're going to be exploring Thomas Hardy's "A Wife in London" in a lot more depth and detail, thinking about how Hardy uses both language and structure to convey his disapproval of war.

So let's get started with analysing this fantastic poem.

So today's lesson is called Analysing "A Wife in London." And by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to analyse how Thomas Hardy presents the devastating consequences of war.

But here are some key words first that you will need in order to access today's lesson, starting with the word to foreshadow.

Now, foreshadowing is when the writer makes subtle hints about what is to come later in the text.

The word morbid means showing an interest in dark or unpleasant subjects, particularly death, and those subjects might be considered quite gruesome.

And gruesome means when something causes repulsion or horror.

The word monumental means great in importance or size.

And we know that Hardy felt that war was a monumental waste of human life that was senseless.

And senseless means extremely foolish or lacking in sense.

If you like to take a moment to pause the video and jot any of these definitions down, then please feel free to do so at your leisure.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to begin by looking at tracking Hardy's use of language throughout the poem before moving on to having a think about the way in which he uses structure to convey his message about war.

But let's begin first of all by looking at his use of language and tracking it through the poem.

So as always, we're going to begin today's lesson with a bit of a discussion.

And I'd like you to think, well, what is figurative language? Can you give any examples of language devices that make use of figurative language? Now for today's lesson, if you have a discussion partner, that's absolutely brilliant.

You can do any of the discussion tasks with them.

If you don't have a discussion partner because you're working alone, absolutely no worries.

If you have a piece of paper, feel free to jot your ideas down instead.

Or if you don't have paper, you can just consider the questions I posed to you in your head.

Pause the video and have a go at either discussing those questions or just thinking about them independently.

Off you go.

Brilliant discussions.

And what a great and positive start to the lesson because many of you were really able to remember that figurative language is language that is meaningful, but it's not literally true.

And some examples of figurative language include similes, metaphors, zoomorphism, symbolism, and pathetic fallacy.

And these are some of the devices and methods that Hardy uses in order to portray his message about war, that it is in fact pointless and futile.

So I'm going to encourage you, first of all, to reread the poem in full independently.

So you will need your poetry anthology in order to be able to do that.

As you are reading, I would like you to focus on highlighting any examples of figurative language that you find as you read through the poem again.

Remember that figurative language is that language that is meaningful, but it's not literally true.

So what I'm going to invite to do now is pause the video while you reread the poem, highlighting figurative language examples as you go through.

So pause the video and off we go.

Fantastic, really well done.

And lots of people managing to find those examples of figurative language and get them highlighted.

So well done there.

So we're gonna track through the poem and look at some of these examples of Hardy's use of language, including his use of figurative language, starting with stanza one, which is here.

So in stanza one, "She sits in the tawny vapour that the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, behind whose webby fold on fold like a waning taper the street lamp glimmers cold." And I'd like you to think, what does Hardy's use of pathetic fallacy used in the first line here that I've highlighted for you in purple reflect here? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you consider that again, either with your discussion partner or independently, whichever you'd prefer.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic and brilliant to hear many of you saying that actually the thick, yellow orangey fog that surrounds the wife in the beginning of the poem could create the impression that she's isolated.

Pathetic fallacy here has actually been used to create a really foreboding atmosphere that foreshadows the really heartbreaking, devastating, and awful news that we know that the wife receives in this poem.

And perhaps he's also trying to convey to us and make us feel the sense of dread that the wives and families of loved ones would feel every day when the post came because they'd be waiting expecting that news to come almost of their husband's or cousin's or brother's or son's deaths.

So perhaps in using this for pathetic fallacy to create this foreboding atmosphere, Hardy is trying to show us or make us feel how the wives of the soldiers would have felt at the time.

So well done if you got that in your discussion.

Brilliant work.

And now looking at another section of the first stanza.

and this word webby, which I think is a really interesting word choice from Hardy.

So I'd like you to think a little bit about why he might have chosen that word webby.

So what could the word webby suggest about the wife's situation? And I'd like you to consider in relation to that what the qualities of a spider's web are and what they're used for and how that might reflect the wife's situation.

So there's a little bit of help for you if you weren't sure.

Again, I'd like you to pause the video and undertake some discussion if you're able to.

And if not, just consider those questions independently.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work, and it was great to hear some of you speaking so passionately about Hardy's word choice here.

I agree with you.

I think it's a really significant word choice, and it's also really interesting.

And actually I think it's interesting because Hardy's use of this metaphor here could reflect the inescapable grief that the families of soldiers experienced.

So here he's really trying to convey the suffering that the wives and the mothers and the daughters of soldiers went through when their husbands, sons, brothers, uncles were away at war to try and show that war really negatively affects everybody involved because the families who are trapped at home are just waiting hopelessly for news.

They're waiting for that inevitable loss that almost expecting, but really hoping they won't have to deal with.

And I really like the fact that Hardy has chosen this word web because we know that a spider uses its web to trap flies in to feed on.

And again, it's this idea that the fog is almost like a web that has trapped the wife in her isolation.

And once her husband has died, she's trapped in her grief.

So I think that word webby is a really clever word choice from Hardy there to kind of represent how these wives and families would've been feeling when their loved ones were away at war.

They would've felt trapped, they would've felt hopeless, they would've felt helpless and claustrophobic with pure fear and anxiety.

So again, looking further at the first stanza and looking at the last two lines in particular, well, what could Hardy's simile here foreshadow? And why do you think he's chosen to use the image of a burning out candle? What might this reflect? So again, I'd like you to pause the video while you consider those questions now.

Fantastic considerations there, and some very perceptive and insightful suggestions.

So I think it's important to look at this image of the almost burnt out candle as a somewhat of a foreshadowing of the loss of the soldier's life.

It could also reflect this idea of time running out for the soldier and his wife, both of whom are going to imminently lose something.

So obviously the soldier's going to lose his wife, the wife is going to lose her husband.

It could also reflect the loss of hope because often in literature we know that light often represents hope.

So if that candle is burning out, the wife's hope is reducing.

It also reflects this idea perhaps that the wife is going to be left in darkness by the death of her husband, okay? She's going to have no light to take forward into her future because her future has almost died with her husband.

So really sad there, but also a really, really prominent and very memorable use of imagery there from Hardy.

So well done if you got those ideas in your discussions, brilliant work.

So looking now more closely at stanza two.

"A messenger's knock cracks smartly, flashed news is in her hand of meaning it dazes to understand though shaped so shortly.

He has fallen in the far South Land." And I'd like you to think here, well, what is significant about how the news is delivered? Why do you think the poet has used the word flashed? What is he trying to show about life perhaps? Why might the writer have used the phrase, "is in her hand," and why not, "she took the telegram"? What's the difference there? And finally, what might the punctuation on the last line reflect? So again, I'm going to invite to pause the video and take a few moments to consider those questions and start to analyse some of Hardy's use of language in stanza two.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work.

And I think there's some really, really intelligent and very powerful word choices and language choices again here from Hardy that I'd like to discuss with you.

So I heard somebody during the discussions there talking about the fact that the devastating news is delivered by a perfect stranger to the woman.

A messenger, somebody she doesn't even know.

The wife therefore is given absolutely no comfort when she receives this kind of news.

And unfortunately this kind of news was just a formality, okay? They had to send out telegrams alerting the loved ones of soldiers that they had died.

And so therefore, she's just one of many wives across London, across the entire country who is receiving a really awful telegram like this at this time.

Now, the word flashed could represent how quickly life can change for both those at war and their families.

Life, you know, is gone in a flash.

Your world has changed in a flash, okay? So it shows kind of the speed at which your life can change because of the devastating impact of war.

Now, the fact that the news is thrust into the wife's hand perhaps shows the lack of control these military wives and families had.

They probably felt really helpless and very powerless waiting at home for the news of the loved ones.

And actually it kind of shows how little control they had over their own lives because whilst the war was waging on, they were really powerless because they were just left to wait for news.

They weren't able to communicate with their partners, and therefore, they would have probably felt really out of control and really hopeless and helpless.

And I think the fact that the news is put into her hand does reflect that idea of the fact that she has no autonomy or control over her own life at that moment.

And lastly, in terms of the poet's use of punctuation, I love his use of punctuation here for many reasons.

I think first of all, the poet's use of punctuation could represent the wife reading the telegram.

So her kind of reading it really slowly and dreading the next word to come, almost not wanting to read the next word because she actually probably knows what it's going to say.

And when you think about that, it's really, really sad.

It could also reflect the robotic nature of the delivery of the news, which was obviously via telegram.

And also the ellipses at the end could reflect the wife's shock and confusion as she tries really hard to interpret the devastating message.

I mean, what a message to receive out of the blue.

It would just be awful.

And I think it would take you a few moments to take a step back and think about exactly what it is that you've just learned.

So I think that Hardy's use of punctuation here really well reflects kind of the shock and the dismay and the disbelief that the wife would have felt in this moment.

So let's check for understanding.

Which of the following is not an explanation for how Hardy has used punctuation in this line, "He has fallen in the far South Land."? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you read the four answer options and decide which you think is not a viable explanation for why the punctuation has been used.

So pause the video and make your answer selection now.

And fantastic work if you selected C.

You're absolutely right.

Okay, this is not really a viable explanation as to why Hardy has used punctuation.

What is more likely is that he's used the punctuation to create pauses for moments of reflection for both the wife and the reader, but also the fact that he's trying to reflect the wife's dread and also the fact that this kind of news was delivered in such a short and concise way that it would've been difficult for that the families and loved ones to get closure from this kind of news.

So well done if you identified that C was not really the viable interpretation here.

So moving on to looking further at Hardy's use of language in standard three.

"'Tis the morrow, the fog hangs thicker, the postman nears and goes.

A letter is brought whose lines disclose by the firelight flicker his hand, whom the worm now knows." And I'd like you to think, well, why do you think the writer returns to an earlier image of the thick fog again in stanza three? And the last line really stands out here, and I think it is partly because of the comma, but it's also because of the particularly morbid and gruesome imagery that Hardy has created through his reference to the worm.

So I'd like you to think about why has the writer included this really gruesome imagery at the end of this stanza? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss those questions, either with the people around you or just thinking about 'em independently if that's how you're working today.

Off you go.

Again, some really fantastic discussions and I can see your analysis already starting to really develop as we move through the lesson and your confidence grows.

Now, I was super, super impressed that one person spoke about the writer's use of pathetic fallacy again.

And the reason that they've done that is arguably to create this ominous atmosphere.

Now, the fog could also reflect how lost and alone the wife now feels knowing that her husband has died and following the tragic news that she received yesterday.

We know that in fog it's very difficult to see forward.

So this could represent the fact that the wife is struggling to imagine her future without her husband here.

And secondly, the brutal and morbid imagery of the worms eating her husband could reflect the wife's horrible imaginings of her husband's body away at war, okay? Receiving news like this would start a kind of chain reaction of really awful thoughts.

And actually Hardy has captured kind of the contents of what she was probably imagining really gruesomely at the end of this stanza here.

And the image of the worms could also reflect the finality of death and the waste of life that war causes.

The fact that her beloved husband has simply become worm's meat, okay? He has ceased to exist and his kind of purpose has been taken away from him.

He has just been reduced down to some food for the worms. And again, that shows kind of Hardy's disapproval of war and the fact that it takes away valuable human life and reduces people down to just kind of disposable objects that can just be thrown away and discarded for absolutely or very little reason in his eyes.

So well done if you got those ideas.

Brilliant work.

So looking finally at stanza four, "Fresh, firm, penned in highest feather, page-full of his hoped return, and of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn in the summer weather, and of new love that they would learn." And I'd like you to find me a quotation that shows the soldier's hope for his future with his wife.

And I would like you to analyse it, looking at how Hardy has used language to convey the soldier's hope.

So I'm putting the onus here on you to select the evidence and you to analyse something that you find significant in this stanza.

I'm really looking forward to see what you select and what annotations you make.

So pause the video and off you go to do that now.

Fantastic, and it was great to see a lot of you selecting different quotations.

However, here are some of the quotations you might have selected in purple.

Now I'd like to talk about this image of the summer weather and the fact that actually that could reflect the soldier's hopes for a bright future with his wife once he returns from war.

And that's really heartbreaking because the false hope we are shown here really emphasises the waste of life that Hardy arguably felt war was because arguably, he felt that young men's futures and those of their families were just being senselessly ripped away.

And that's really reflected here, and that's arguably why he ends this poem with the hope because he is trying to show us, "Well, this is what this man could have done with his life, but no, instead he was sent to war and he's died now.

He's nothing but worm's meat, but this is what could have become of him." So here, Hardy is trying really hard to show us the devastating waste of life that he thinks that war is.

So a massive well done if you selected any of those quotations.

And there was just some food for thought for you about the image of the summer weather.

So onto the first task of the lesson now, and I'd like you to think, well, which of Hardy's language methods do you think is the most effective in conveying his disapproval of war and why? And I would like you to do this as a discussion.

And as you're discussing, I'd like you to make sure that you have given a quotation to justify your response.

So it's no use just saying, "Well, I think this," you need to justify it with a quotation from the text.

And I'd like you to really explain how his use of language methods show his disapproval of war.

Because the whole purpose of this poem being written, it was a protest poem.

It was an anti-war poem.

So he was trying to express his disapproval of the war, and we are now looking at how he does that.

So which method do you think was most effective in conveying his disapproval of war and why? So what I'm going to invite to now is pause the video while you have a go at doing just that now.

Fantastic work, really, really well done.

Some great discussions there.

And we asked our Oak pupils to debate the same questions and here's what they had to say.

So Lucas said, "I think that Hardy's use of morbid imagery in his quotation 'his hand, whom the worm now knows' is the most effective in conveying his disapproval of war because it shows how pointless the loss of life is.

Nothing good has come of this soldier's death.

He has simply been returned to the earth for worms to feed on.

It shows the lack of dignity in war." And Izzy adds, "Well, I really liked Hardy's use of symbolism with the fog.

I like that the tawny fog surrounds the wife as she waits for news, symbolising her uncertainty of her husband's welfare.

I then like how the thicker fog after his death could reflect her isolation because she's been left behind alone to grieve the loss of her husband." So just two suggestions there from our Oak pupils of things that you might have said.

Obviously this was an opinion question.

So there was no right or wrong.

These were just some of our Oak pupils' thoughts.

So thank you so much to you for your participation in that task, and thank you to our Oak pupils for their participation in the feedback.

So answer the second part of the lesson now where we're going to consider Hardy's use of structure and how he uses structure to reinforce his message and disapproval of war.

So I'd like you now to read the poem out loud.

And I'd like you once you've done that, to think, well, how is the poem organised? What do you notice about the poem's structure? So I'm going to pause the video and give you a few moments to do just that now.

Fantastic discussions.

And as Lucas points out, "The poem is organised into two sections, the tragedy and the irony.

The poet presents us with the tragedy of war, the death of the soldier, and the aftermath of this tragedy, the grief and loss that his wife feels.

Arguably, in this poem, we are therefore shown the before and the after of the loss." So I really like Lucas's suggestion here that perhaps the poet has broken the poems two sections to show the before of the loss and the after of the loss to show how the effects of war are long-lasting.

Lucas also identified that the poem has a consistent rhyme scheme throughout, and he wants to show us how this works.

So here's stanza one, and you'll notice that vapour and taper actually rhyme.

So they would both be rhyme A.

Now uprolled, fold, and cold also all rhyme, and therefore we would mark them as B because vapour and uprolled do not rhyme.

So therefore this is a different rhyme from the first one.

So it has to be called B.

If we look again at stanza two, smartly and shortly are kind of power rhymes or half rhymes together.

So again, we see C and C there because smartly doesn't rhyme with vapour or uprolled, and therefore it needs to have a new letter to reflect the fact that it is a new rhyme.

So then obviously hand, understand, and land all rhyme, but they don't rhyme with smartly.

So again, we need a new letter to represent that this is a new part of the rhyme.

So hand, understand, and land will become D.

So the rhyme scheme here is A, B, B, A, B, C, D, D, C, D.

Now what I'd like you to do is see if you can label the rest of the rhyme scheme in the poem.

Remember, if it's a different rhyme, and it doesn't rhyme with anything that's previously come before in the poem, you need to give it a different letter and that different letter will be the next letter in the alphabet.

So you'd start with E for the next rhyme.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at labelling the rest of the rhyme scheme in the poem.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Really, really well done there.

So you should have gone forward with EF and GH.

So it would've been E, F, F, E, F, G, H, H, G, H.

So well done if you got that, brilliant work.

And what I'd like you to think now is it's no use just being able to label the rhyme scheme.

You've got to be able to think about why and how it's been used to convey the poet's message.

So why do you think that the poet has used a predictable and consistent rhyme scheme in this poem? What might that consistent and very predictable rhyme scheme reflect about the nature of war? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video, and I really want you to think about the fact that the rhyme scheme is very predictable.

We know what's coming next and how that links to war.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at discussing that question and analysing the poet's use of rhyme scheme.

Off you go.

Brilliant, and I'm so glad that so many of you were able to give an answer for this because I think it's such a difficult thing to do is talking about rhyme scheme.

And I'm so impressed with how many of you were able to really understand why this rhyme scheme's been used.

And actually as Izzy points out, and many of you pointed out, Hardy's rhyme scheme is really predictable and inevitable, much like death and loss in war.

So perhaps Hardy has used a repetitive rhyme scheme to reflect the idea that the outcome of war is always the same.

It's always death, loss, and grief.

And again, that really reinforces his message that war is futile and pointless because he's saying it's so pointless because it always ends the same way.

It always ends with death, loss, and grief.

And perhaps he's used that predictable rhyme scheme to really kind of reflect that idea.

So I'd like you to discuss now, well, what narrative perspective is this poem written in? Who is the speaker and what is the effect of choosing that speaker? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss this either with people around you or thinking about it independently, if that's how you're working today.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work, and really well done To those of you that pointed out that the poem is written from the perspective of a third person speaker.

So it's not written from the perspective of the wife, it's not written from the perspective of the soldier, it's written from a third person perspective.

And actually telling the story in third person gives it universality, okay? It means it could be applied to anybody in the country who's experiencing something similar.

And this wife could actually be any military wife, and perhaps Hardy did that on purpose because he wants to emphasise that this was happening to the loved ones of soldiers everywhere.

So he was kind of illustrating the fact that anybody who supports this war is basically signing up their family for inevitable death and you know, devastation for themselves.

So the fact that this poem has a universal feel really kind of conveys the widespread devastation of war.

So let's check for understanding now.

Which of the following quotations also supports the idea that the poem has universality, that it could be about any couple in any war? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you read the four quotations from the poem and decide which you think reflects this idea of universality.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work and well done if you selected B.

You're absolutely right.

The poem's title and the fact that it uses a rather than the wife gives the poem universality as this could be about any wife waiting for the news of her soldier husband.

So it's really significant that Hardy chose a wife and not the wife because it gives it that universality.

So well done if you got that, brilliant work.

So onto the last task of the lesson now, where I'd like you to write a paragraph in response to the following question.

How does Hardy use structure to present the tragedy of war? And I'd like you to consider the methods that Hardy has used, the fact that he split the poem into two sections of before and after, the fact that he's used that really consistent and predictable rhyme scheme, the fact that he has used that third person speaker.

And I'd like you to remember to link Hardy's use of methods back to why he wrote this poem.

It is so important to always have in mind why the poem was written.

What was he trying to show the public about war? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at writing your paragraph.

Remember, you need to think carefully about what evidence you're going to choose to support your opinion, and also make sure that everything you say links back to the purpose in writing the poem, what Hardy was trying to achieve, what he was trying to show the public.

I'm really excited to read your responses and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work and really well done.

And as I said, when you are discussing any piece of work, but especially poetry, it's really important to keep returning back to why Hardy wrote this poem.

And I'd like you to think when you were discussing that, did you mention that this poem was written two months into the Second Boer War, that most of the general public initially really supported Britain's involvement in the Second Boer War, that Hardy was firmly opposed to this war and all war in general? Did you mention that Hardy viewed war as a monumental waste of life? Did you mention that Hardy used this and his other poetry to illustrate just how harmful and destructive war is? So these were some of the contextual details that you could have mentioned to support and evidence the fact that actually Hardy wrote this poem as an anti-war protest poem because he hated war and he'd really despised how much life was wasted in war.

So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you reread the guidance, check that you've included those things.

And if you haven't, take a moment to really improve your response by adding in some of the suggestions above.

So pause the video and off you go to improve your response now.

Fantastic, and it was lovely to see so many of you adding those ideas in in a different colour pen so that you could see your own improvements.

That's really conscientious of you.

Well done.

So to summarise the learning from today.

Well, first of all, Hardy uses figurative language in the first stanza to create a foreboding atmosphere and to foreshadow the devastating news that the wife receives.

Hardy uses pathetic fallacy throughout the poem to reflect the wife's isolation, confusion, and loneliness.

Hardy also reuses punctuation to reflect the short nature of telegrams and to show the wife's shock as she struggles to comprehend what has happened.

Furthermore, the poem's structure reflects the inevitability of loss in war.

And finally, the third person perspective also gives the poem a universal meaning, meaning it could be about any couple who are experiencing war together.

I'd like to thank you for coming today's lesson.

It's been brilliant to see how your understanding of the poem has developed and how your analysis has developed alongside your understanding of this poem.

It's been lovely to discuss this poem with you, and I've really enjoyed hearing all of your contributions and suggestions.

So thank you very much for those.

I really look forward to seeing you next time, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

See you later.