Maiden Name

Question 1

What is Maiden Name about? What themes are there within it?

Answer 1

A woman losing her identity and meaning in choosing to marry.
Themes of Identity, Restriction, Envy.

Question 2

‘Marrying left your maiden name disused.’

Answer 2

• Deliberately discarded her name - her true identity has now been forgotten, and the name no longer has value. Criticising her and her marriage.
• Structural end stop after disused = permanence of this decision / finality of choice - who he loves is gone.

Question 3

‘five light sounds’

Answer 3

• synecdoche, 5 syllables of her name (Winifred Arnott)
• ‘light’ symbolise purity, celestial nature, where her name was untouched, pure, unchanged - identity in her maiden name.

Question 4

‘thankfully confused’

Answer 4

• Oxymoron - criticises women and their naivety in the social expectation/ conformity of marriage, undermines her decision to marry by insisting confusion. Condescending, portraying her as naive /ditsy.

Question 5

‘By law with someone else’

Answer 5

• Legal language - views marriage as a social constraint, believes marriage is merely a legal requirement, disconnects marriage from love.
• Misogynistic attitude - women cannot make their own decisions (?)

Question 6

‘Lying’

Answer 6

• Sense of neglect
• Pun, referring to the lost items where her old name is written, but also how this name is now discarded/ forgotten.

Question 7

‘Old lists, old programmes, a school prize or two’

Answer 7

• Asyndetic listing - past achievements are now worthless/no value as her name changes. Old life become meaningless.
• Neglect
• Old self was notable and worth of celebration, contrast to her now married, less remarkable self.

Question 8

‘Strengthless, weightless, strengthless’

Answer 8

• Listing, repetition of ‘less’ emphasises how much she has lost through marriage.
  ‘Strengthless’ - by giving herself to another, she has been weakened
• Lacks a sense of purpose and value, due to her devotion to a new name that is not hers.

Question 9

‘Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly’

Answer 9

A03: Movement - rejected modernism, used traditional structures, posing questions rather than answers.

Question 10

‘No, it means you. Or, since you’re past and gone,’

Answer 10

• Name transforms from having no value, to historical value. Changing mindset. Old name still means the best parts of her as ‘beautiful’ ‘young’ ‘vivid’ as in Stanza 3.

Question 11

‘unfingermarked’

Answer 11

• Pun, referring to a time where her finger was not marked by a ring, and a time where she was not tainted by someone else.
• She was better when untouched, pure.

Question 12

‘with your depreciating luggage laden.’

Answer 12

• Metaphor/alliteration - new life/new partner is something quickly losing value, and becoming a burden.
• Empathetic end stop - permanence and finality of her marriage - changing her name has changed her identity.

Question 13

Rhyme Scheme of Maiden Name:

Answer 13

• Regular - monotonous and routine nature of marriage.