Rossetti presents Maude Clare as a very predominant and attention seeking character. The fact that the title of the poem is "Maude Clare" and ends with her name suggests shes a character who wants to be th centre at the start and left in your mind at the end. Although it is the character "Nells" wedding we see that the narrator in the poem describes Maude Clare as "like a queen" and Nell the bride as "like a village maid" this highlights how important Maude Clare is and how highly she is looked upon that even though the bride should be the queen of her own marriage somebody else is. It is also very significant how the lines are layed out you would expect the queen to be the first line and the village maid the second line implying the status of the two highlighting the abnormality in this. Could it alternitavley be saying if you are the bride you are the most important regardless of your status.
This poem is spoken by predominantly female voices: Maude Clare, Nell and mother. Through the poem they seem to dominate the speach suggesting some superiority of women to men. Their is one point we hear the groom speaking but he only says the words " Maude Clare" reffering back to this idea that evreything revolves around the women. Hyphons are used to break up his speach into a stutter suggesting some kind of embarrasment which is reinforced when "he hid his face" this could be a symbol of the wrapped up guilt he feels for still having feelings for Maude Clare "my lord gazed long on Maude Clare" suggesting that some feeling still remains . Is he unsure if he is marrying the right women? Is he still emotionally attached to Maude Clare?.
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