Analysis of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Bridegroom” Essay

During the First World War, death was a constant threat. Soldiers piece about it every day in the trenches, and more succumbed to it. Rudyard Kiplings Epitaphs of War represents the conflict those deaths had across much of the world. The Bridegroom exposes the run short thoughts of a dying spend by dint of an extended metaphor, personification and sense of smell.First of all, the title and runner stanza conk out that the speaker, a young soldier, is either dying or already dead. Traditionally, a bridegroom defines a man on his wedding day. In this poem, Kipling personifies the bride as death and therefore the title refers to a man on his last day. The speaker is a soldier fighting in the trenches, writing or at least speaking out to his married woman back home. The first stanza initiates the apologetic and sorrowful tone that is used throughout the poem. The soldier asks his wife not to call him false as he rests in other arms. He apologizes to his good for abandoning her for a new mistress, death. The arms not lone(prenominal) represent deaths embrace, but they also evoke locomote to the weapons of the enemy in battle. The stanza also demonstrates that the couples marriage is fresh as the speaker mentions his wifes scarce-known breast.The second stanza clearly brings onward the poems theme. The soldier mentions his more ancient bride, death. She is qualified as ancient because she has always existed, not only with him but since the beginning of time. He also describes a cold embrace, the word cold working on several levels here. It refers to the deceased and his rigidity, but it also expresses his reluctance to follow death. By calling her constant, Kipling emphasizes the reality of death on the battlefield she was faithful and always lurked over the soldier.The third stanza describes how the young man escaped from his often set marriage with death through unexplained miracles. We croupe suppose that he narrowly survived several life-threateni ng events, thereby deceit death,which relates back to his cheating on his living marriage. His new marriage is now perceived as consummate, a term which is usually used for unions made complete through the sexual act. This union, however, refers to the soldiers falling into deaths embrace, last touching her after a long apprehension and ultimately duplicity in her bed, his grave.The term consummate can also represent perfection, which, in this marriage refers to the fact that it was meant to be. The last line reinforces the consummation by axiom that the union cannot be unmade. Death cannot be unmade it is a ageless state as the ideal marriage is, but it also returns to the figurative bed which will forever remain unmade.In the last stanza, the tone reaches a lull, yet is still filled with sorrow. The speaker urges his wife to live, to effort on and allow life to cure her of the painful memory of him. Kipling uses a metaphor to treat memories as a painful disease that can onl y be cured by time. The soldier expresses fear of world forgotten with the word almost. He wants to be remembered although he mostly desires for his beloved to regain happiness. The final two lines return to a more drear tone as the soldier states he will have to hold out the unceasingity of memories in death.In the end, we can feel the young man has a greater acceptance of his state as he begins using the pronoun us to qualify himself and death. The marriage, having been consummated, as previously stated, they are now one. Immortality is an evocative word, which fits abruptly into the general theme. The soldier is now immortal, fixed in time with his memories and never able to make new ones. The term also refers back to death, which is immortal in its own way.To conclude, Rudyard Kiplings The Bridegroom expresses the difficult process associated with death. The motley metaphors and personification bring forward the themes in an apologetic, somber tone. The nameless soldier re presents all young men who died young unfairly in the trenches, xenophobic of being disloyal to their countries.