Ellen Kay’s “Pathedy of Manners” is a poem in which an anonymous narrator tells of a
woman who goes from being young and single, to married with children, to widowed and alone.
According to the title, her life is a “pathedy,” a pathetic tragedy. One way that Kay indicates the
tragic pathos of the woman’s situation is through the vocabulary and the tone, which changes
over the course of the poem. Analyzing these two elements helps to reveal Kay’s theme; valuing
material objects and meaningless social contact can lead to loneliness and empty relationships.
In stanzas one through three, the narrator describes a brilliant and privileged young
woman of twenty. The tone is cheerful and bright, and the vocabulary very specifically describes
a rarefied world of wealth, taste, and class: the popular young woman is in Phi Beta Kappa, an
academic honor society. She remains chaste although men seek her out. She learns to
appreciate things like “antique crystal and authentic pearls” (Kay 700). However, “when she
might have thought,” she instead chooses to “converse” (Kay 701), chatting rather than
considering. When the young woman graduates, she continues her “education,” learning to
distinguish real china from fake and turning down marriage proposals from minor royalty. The
young woman is clearly appealing, smart, and interested in the world, and the tone in these
stanzas is bright and optimistic. Indeed, according to Ellen Weiss, in her article “The Tragedy in
‘Pathedy of Manners,’” the young woman’s “ability to recognize quality and to make intellectual
decisions based on her judgment is laudable. The emptiness of such an existence—the seeming
lack of friends, the jargon, the chatting rather than thinkin...
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... surrounded by a “hundred people”; however, rather than communicate, they speak with
“meanings lost in manners” (Kay 701). In other words, the polite way in which they communicate
is more important to them than what they say. Indeed, the one person who seems to know the
woman very well—the narrator—talks about her but not to her. With her own choices, then, the
woman has limited her brilliance and potential to a single repetitive and shiny circle of nothing.
Kay makes this clear in a number of different ways, but most particularly with her vocabulary and
tone.
Works Cited
Kay, Ellen. “Pathedy of Manners.” Rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. Perrine’s
Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 11th
ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. 700-701.
Print.
Weiss, Ellen. “The Tragedy in ‘Pathedy of Manners.’” Poetry in June 121.8 (2009): 66-69. Print.
Lastly, Alexie sets forth a particular structure and form in this poem. The stanzas are
In the podcast, Politeness, Melyvn Bragg discusses the idea of politeness at the start of the 18th century. As mentioned, politeness is “a notion that implies care and the ability to recognize others feelings”. The guidelines for best behavior at the end of the 17th century was formed out of moderation, so going into the 18th century created a new world of contact and conversation through the development of coffeehouses. People discovered interaction through politeness, thus allowing them to deal with people inferior to them or to those who made them feel inferior. Melvyn brings up how the movement of politeness was essentially a reaction to the civil war that eventually laid foundations for a new world. The introduction of coffeehouses permitted the public to read The Spectator and embrace issues and arguments; which allowed it's readers to recognize problems and social issues. Melvyn brought up that conversation was how one learned politeness so that opposing people can meet on equal terms. As the civil war continued in politics, politeness became an attempt to making a difference in society and social life. It allowed people to speak to others regardless of rank and gender. He discusses how the growth of public space in coffeehouses was both a real place as well as a metaphorical one, which allowed opinion and publication so that people can read aloud and interact with others. An interesting point he mentioned was showing politeness through culture; that the whole idea of culture is displayed by reading and how/what you read. Also I found it interesting how manners are based on inner morality, but excessive manners can lead to manipulation and getting one's own way. Politeness brings philosophy to the table, thus ...
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair. Modern Poems. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1989.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
It is easily inferred that the narrator sees her mother as extremely beautiful. She even sits and thinks about it in class. She describes her mother s head as if it should be on a sixpence, (Kincaid 807). She stares at her mother s long neck and hair and glorifies virtually every feature. The narrator even makes reference to the fact that many women had loved her father, but he chose her regal mother. This heightens her mother s stature in the narrator s eyes. Through her thorough description of her mother s beauty, the narrator conveys her obsession with every detail of her mother. Although the narrator s adoration for her mother s physical appearance is vast, the longing to be like her and be with her is even greater.
Kelley’s word choice and emotional appeals to is her most powerful tool used in this speech. Her use of the word girl is made powerful by adjectives like “young”, “little”, and one time in line 29,
woman’s life, from her being a teen to her death in her house. The town’s people did not
The rate of her voice kept my interest because depending on the question she was answering her voiced seemed to rise and the emotion through her voice was clearly depicted
turns of phrase. She’s a walking exaggeration, outsize in sound, personality and look. And she’s
In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At ...
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
also why the author has her speaking in monologue form. It is anoher way we feel
We trace her struggles with personal grief, a restricted social life, socio-economic decline, and romantic misfortune, a long history of trauma and repression.”(445)
Among the major social determinants of linguistic variation, gender is widely considered to be one of the most significant ones. According to research on a range of linguistic features, gender may even be the dominant factor.