Étude du poème Sonnet VIII de Edna St.Vincent Millay (document en anglais)

Cunning and Deceitfulness in Sonnet VIII

In the poem “Sonnet VIII” by Edna St. Vincent Millay the speaker shows how she will use cunning and deceit to gain revenge upon her husband for saying something to her that she found to be offensive. She says this using phrases which indicate that she will pretend to be the kind of wife her husband likes when she is in fact planning on leaving him without even telling him. Also the sonnet has a perfect rhyme scheme for a Shakespearean sonnet and nothing appears unusual at first glance but if you look deeper into the poem you notice that the meter is very unusual and has no real rhythm. She also shows her cunning and her deceitfulness through her word choice.

The speaker indicates her deceitfulness and her cunning while she is plotting against her husband in a variety of phrases such as “You will not catch me reading anymore” (10). She indicates that even though she finds her husband speaking like he was her enemy she will continue to act so that she will “be called a wife to pattern by” (11). But despite the fact that people will think her a perfect wife she will be “crafty” (9) and “sly” (9) and one day she will leave one day while her husband is not home and then he will come home and she “shall be gone” (14).

The speaker also indicates to the reader her deceptiveness by hiding an extremely convoluted and unusual meter inside of the very obvious rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet. The poet also appears to deliberately refuse to use any figurative language throughout the poem in order to add to the deception that is shown throughout the poem by refusing to use any words or phrases that might appear deceptive or misleading in order to better hide the deception represented by the meter.

The speaker starts off the poem by promising that her husband will be “sorry “(1) for what he said but she didn’t say anything to him about it. She actually starts talking about clothes such as her “newest hat” (5) she then says that she will “be sweet” (9) and “soft” and that she won’t be caught “reading any more” (10). These are all characteristics of a good wife back when she wrote this poem but she indicates that she will leave her husband some day on a “sane day” (13) by which she means a day which has nice weather so that she could travel a long distance easily and prevent her husband from finding her easily.

The author shows very easily how deceptive she is capable of being through her use of deception in the meter and rhyme scheme and through her use of ordinary harmless sounding words to talk about the plotting and deception that the speaker is talking about in the poem.

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