FREE ESSAY ON AMY LOWELL'S "PATTERNS"

AMY LOWELL'S "PATTERNS"

On the outside, the speaker in Amy Lowell's "Patterns" acts the way Victorian 
society expects of her. However, on the inside, she expresses her emotions and what she 
truly feels. The speaker is confined to each "button, hook, and lace" of society's
values. 
When confronted with an emotional situation, she bottles her feelings and only confesses

them to herself. The "patterns" serve as guidelines for the speaker's life.
The speaker is constantly bombarded by what Victorian society expects of her. 
Her "stiff, brocaded gown" serves as a stand to hold her up. Without it, she would 
crumble with emotion. She mustn't show any form of feeling, so she feels as if there is 
"not a softness anywhere" about her. Confined by "whalebone and brocade," the speaker 
continues to live up to the expectations society enforces upon her. While she remains 
"guarded from embrace" by her gown, she contains emotions that she knows she can't 
express. Doing so would brand her improper.
Once the speaker comes to terms with the bestowed values of society, she 
becomes overwhelmed with the news of her fiancees demise. However, she does not 
express her depression or sadness. Instead she keeps her feelings hidden because she 
knows that behavior is expected of her. She even makes sure "that the messenger takes 
some refreshment" when the news is delivered to her. The only time the speaker 
confesses her feelings is when she is alone. She shows emotions such as passion when 
she fantasizes about her lover, who causes her to feel "aching, melting, unafraid." She 
does this as she sits by herself "in the shade of a lime tree," while her "passion wars 
against the stiff brocade."
Throughout the poem, "patterns" govern the speaker's life. The path that she 
walks down at the start of the poem is a pattern. After her fiancee perishes she says
that 
she will continue to walk "up and down" the path, as if she will remain without love for

the duration of her life. The gown is also a pattern. It confines the woman, blending her

into the rest of society, as patterns do. The speaker says that with her "powdered hair
and 
jeweled fan," she too is a "rare pattern." When the speaker is alone, she separates
herself 
from the rest of society by showing her emotions. However, when she is in public she 
blends in with the rest.
As the speaker walks "down the garden-paths," she notices how beautiful nature 
is. But, then she realizes that she cannot enjoy the world around her because she is 
confined to her stiff gown. Even though she would "like to see it lying in a heap upon
the 
ground," she knows she cannot indulge such fantasies. Fantasies are the only way for her

to truly express herself, like when she feels such great passion and desire for her
lover. 
"Patterns" make up the structure of the speaker's life. After finding out about her
fiancee 
she feels she has been pushed by Victorian society to such an extreme as to ask herself 
the question, "What are patterns for?"
Bibliography
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