Christina Rossetti: Poem #6: 'In the Round Tower at Jhansi':

GENERAL CONTENT, FORM, RHYME ETC.

- About Captain Skene and his wife in the Indian Mutany (1887), he committed suicide and killed his wife to escape the Indian soldiers.

- Regular rhyme: ABAB 

- Narrative stance = 3rd person but in 3rd stanza seems almost 1st person.

- Narrative poem -> different to most of her poems, lots of dialogue

STANZA 1 & TITLE:

- TITLE: suggests content, Victorian audience would have understood the reference.

- 'thousand to one' hyperbole 

- 'swarming howling wretches' imagery, the soldiers aren't given human characteristics they are described as disgusting and animalistic (swarm= not individualised) 

- 'gained and gained and gained' repetition of this triplet builds tension

STANZA 2:

- 'Skene looked at his pale young wife' Skene is given a name whereas she isn't, he has the power (Victorian traditions of gender roles), pale also is quite pitying

- Lots of unattributed dialogue and ambiguous dialogue 

- 'The time is come!' exclamatory tone, declarative statement - assume it's Skene replying, the man has the power and is deciding on their future

- 'Young, strong, and so full of life' another triplet shows the narrator's attitudes of sympathy etc.

STANZA 3:

- 1st three lines are trochaic feet, the 1st syllables are stressed which emphasise the tension. 

- 'close his... close her... close the' not only does this show their desperation not to let each other go but the parallelism also is a triplet once again.

- Exclamatory statement: 'God forgive them this!' shows pathos as well as narrator's attitudes of sorrow/pitying/sympathy also this shows the religious aspect of the poem (Victorian era, suicide and murder were considered sins) it also suggests a 1st person narrator

STANZA 4:

- Very reassuring dialogue from Skene (Again he has the power), parallelism again in 2nd and 3rd lines which present the character as selfless and caring. Regretful and desperate tone.

- 'loth' = he's able to do it

STANZA 5:

- 'kiss' repetition shows desperation, sibilance and alliteration are present in this repetition 

- repetition of compound words 'good-bye' show the disjointed nature.