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A Woman's Last Word Summary & Analysis
by Robert Browning

A Woman's Last Word Summary & Analysis
by Robert Browning

  • Intro
  • Summary
  • Themes
  • Line-by-Line
    Explanations
  • Symbols
  • Poetic
    Devices
  • Vocabulary &
    References
  • Form, Meter, &
    Rhyme Scheme
  • Speaker
  • Setting
  • Context
  • Resources
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The Full Text of “A Woman's Last Word”

I.

1Let's contend no more, Love,

2Strive nor weep—

3All be as before, Love,

4—Only sleep!

II.

5What so wild as words are?

6—I and thou

7In debate, as birds are,

8Hawk on bough!

III.

9See the creature stalking

10While we speak—

11Hush and hide the talking,

12Cheek on cheek!

IV.

13What so false as truth is,

14False to thee?

15Where the serpent's tooth is

16Shun the tree—

V.

17Where the apple reddens

18Never pry—

19Lest we lose our Edens,

20Eve and I!

VI.

21Be a god and hold me

22With a charm—

23Be a man and fold me

24With thine arm!

VII.

25Teach me, only teach, Love!

26As I ought

27I will speak thy speech, Love,

28Think thy thought—

VIII.

29Meet, if thou require it,

30Both demands,

31Laying flesh and spirit

32In thy hands!

IX.

33That shall be to-morrow

34Not to-night:

35I must bury sorrow

36Out of sight.

X.

37—Must a little weep, Love,

38—Foolish me!

39And so fall asleep, Love,

40Loved by thee.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Introduction

    • Robert Browning's "A Woman's Last Word" is a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of a woman who wants to stop bickering with her lover and go to sleep. She explains that their argument is doing real damage and could potentially cost them their relationship, suggesting that sometimes it's better to choose the comfort of being together over the satisfaction of being right. At the same time, the poem points to the way women in Victorian society were expected to give up their own thoughts and opinions in order to placate their men and keep the peace. The poem was first published in Browning's 1855 collection, Men and Women.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Summary

    • Let's stop arguing, my dear; no more struggling or crying. Let's go back to the way things were, my dear, and just go to sleep.

      Is there anything as fierce and untamed as words? When you and I are fighting, we're like birds being watched by a hawk on a tree branch!

      The hawk sneaks up on us while we're caught up in our bickering. We must be quiet and remain still, your cheek pressed against mine.

      To you, the truth sounds like a lie. One should avoid the tree with a snake in it.

      Where the ripening apple is, look no closer. Otherwise, Eve and I could be kicked out of paradise!

      Act like a god; wrap me up in your arms and mesmerize me. Be a man and embrace me!

      Just teach me, my dear! As I should, I'll say whatever you say, think whatever you're thinking.

      I'll meet both of your demands if you ask me to; I'll hand over both my body and my spirit to you!

      But that's tomorrow I'm talking about. For tonight, I have to suppress my deep unhappiness.

      I have to cry, just a little, my dear. How silly I am! But at least now I can fall asleep knowing you love me.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Themes

    • Theme Being Right vs. Being Comfortable

      Being Right vs. Being Comfortable

      "A Woman’s Last Word" is told from the perspective of a woman who has been arguing with her husband or lover and wants to set their argument aside before going to sleep. Her fears that continuing the fight might damage their relationship mean she's willing to make an awful lot of concessions so long as she and her partner can cuddle up and go to bed together. Sometimes, her coaxing suggests, it feels more important to be comfortable and secure—to stop fighting—than it is to be right.

      "Let's contend no more, Love," the speaker tells her partner: in her eyes, they've argued for long enough, and it's time to set aside their "debate" and get some rest. At this point, she's so weary of the argument that, even if her partner is in the wrong, she's ready to give up on proving it. If what she's been claiming is the truth sounds "false to thee," she tells him, then she's prepared to accept that he's right!

      The speaker isn't just giving up because she wants to get some rest, the poem implies: she worries that if she and her partner don't set aside their differences and go to sleep, they may very well be risking their whole relationship. When the couple bicker, she says, they're like little birds squabbling while not noticing the "hawk" stalking them, a simile that suggests she fears this argument might lead to the death of their relationship.

      Rather than persisting in seeking a real resolution to their problems, then, the speaker decides to reach for the comforts of peace and quiet. She'd rather give up on the argument than lose her partner's affection. Explaining herself, she alludes to the biblical story of Eve being tempted to pluck a forbidden "apple" from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus losing Paradise forever. She feels she should learn from Eve and "shun" (or avoid) the tree where the "serpent's tooth is," suggesting that she feels it's better in these circumstances not to uncover the truth, not to sort out who’s right and who’s wrong. In order to avoid Eve's fate, she’s willing to let her knowledge of good and evil go, so to speak.

      Giving up on this fight might mean she has to "bury sorrow / Out of sight" for the time being. She even calls her own tears "foolish," playing down her emotions to keep the peace. But in this moment, the value of being right seems much lesser to her than the value of being "loved by thee," cared for and embraced by her partner.

    • Theme Gender and Power in Relationships

      Gender and Power in Relationships

      "A Woman's Last Word" explores the submissive role Victorian women were expected to play in their romantic relationships. The poem's speaker, a woman trying to end an argument with her partner before bed, tries to soften his anger by becoming utterly agreeable, vowing to accept his perspective if he'll only embrace her. Her wheedling monologue suggests that women are socialized to placate and comply with men in order to keep the peace—but also that a performance of such submissiveness might often have been a Victorian woman's only way of exercising power.

      Trying to placate her partner after an argument, the poem's speaker decides to knuckle under. Rather than press her own idea of the truth, she'll accept his version of the facts: she tells him she's willing to "speak [his] speech" and "think [his] thought" if he'll only agree to stop fighting and come to bed. She flatters him, too, asking him to be like a "god" to her as well as a sexy "man" holding her in his arms.

      Explaining why she's backing down, she draws on traditional ideas about how women and men should relate—going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The speaker refers to that biblical story when she vows to "shun the tree" where the "serpent's tooth is," fearing to ruin her "Eden" the way "Eve" did. This allusion touches on the old idea that the fall of humanity was a woman's fault and that women must now pay the price by submitting to men’s domination. Eve's transgression got her and Adam kicked out of Paradise; the speaker isn't willing to risk losing the "Paradise" of her relationship by holding her ground.

      The speaker seems to be surrendering, then. But in yielding to (and flattering) her partner, she's also exercising a traditionally feminine soft power. Her surrender reveals a certain kind of cunning and skill: she knows exactly what she has to do to get her partner to stop arguing and come to bed! Persuading him that she wants nothing more than to be wrapped up in his magnificent arms, she's trying to get what she really wants: an end to this argument. In other words, by behaving like a pliant, agreeable, submissive little lady, she actually gets the "last word."

      However, if the speaker is "require[d]" to hand over both "flesh and spirit" to satisfy her partner, any power she has is necessarily incomplete. She's still not at liberty to express how she really feels. For that matter, readers don’t know what happens after her speech ends. She might get the "last word" in the sense that she gets the peace she's aiming for. Alternately, this "last word" might mark a tragedy: what happens if she fails to placate her angry lover and these really are her last words?

      The poem thus implicitly criticizes the falsity and unfairness of Victorian gender dynamics. A system in which women must pretend to be weak and pliant, this speaker's story suggests, disempowers women and makes fools and tyrants of men.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Woman's Last Word”

    • Lines 1-4

      Let's contend no more, Love,
      Strive nor weep—
      All be as before, Love,
      —Only sleep!

      "A Woman's Last Word" is a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of a woman who has been arguing with her lover. It begins with the speaker addressing her partner, begging him to "contend no more"—or lay their argument to rest—so that they can go to "sleep."

      There's nothing particularly out of the ordinary in this opening stanza. It's natural for couples to disagree, and sometimes debates between lovers can be quite passionate! It's clear this argument was a doozy—given that the speaker wishes both parties would stop "Striv[ing]" and "weep[ing]—but the poem gives no indication as to what the cause of the fight was in the first place. What's important to the speaker, now, is that they make up—that things go back to how they were "before" the fight began.

      This opening stanza establishes the poem's form. Each stanza is a quatrain (it has four lines) written in a mixture of trochaic trimeter and trochaic dimeter. Odd-numbered lines contain three trochees (poetic feet with syllables arranged in a stressed unstressed pattern: DUM-da) while even-numbered lines contain two.

      Here's the meter of this opening quatrain to illustrate this:

      Let's con- | tend no | more, Love,
      Strive nor | weep—
      All be | as be- | fore, Love,
      —Only | sleep!

      Trochaic meter creates what's known as a falling rhythm. Here, the movement from firm stressed to softer unstressed syllables subtly mirrors the fact that the speaker is giving in, trying to placate her beloved.

      Note, however, that the shorter, even-numbered lines are also catalectic: they're missing their final unstressed syllables. As a result, they feel blunter, more clipped, than they otherwise might—evocative of someone who's determined to have "the last word."

      The poem also follows a simple ABAB rhyme scheme: the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, as do the second and fourth. Notice that the "A" rhyme in this first stanza is in fact an identical rhyme: "Love" and "Love." This repetition draws more attention to the speaker's pet name for her partner, highlighting her attempts to calm and soothe him.

    • Lines 5-8

      What so wild as words are?
      —I and thou
      In debate, as birds are,
      Hawk on bough!

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    • Lines 9-12

      See the creature stalking
      While we speak—
      Hush and hide the talking,
      Cheek on cheek!

    • Lines 13-16

      What so false as truth is,
      False to thee?
      Where the serpent's tooth is
      Shun the tree—

    • Lines 17-20

      Where the apple reddens
      Never pry—
      Lest we lose our Edens,
      Eve and I!

    • Lines 21-24

      Be a god and hold me
      With a charm—
      Be a man and fold me
      With thine arm!

    • Lines 25-28

      Teach me, only teach, Love!
      As I ought
      I will speak thy speech, Love,
      Think thy thought—

    • Lines 29-32

      Meet, if thou require it,
      Both demands,
      Laying flesh and spirit
      In thy hands!

    • Lines 33-36

      That shall be to-morrow
      Not to-night:
      I must bury sorrow
      Out of sight.

    • Lines 37-40

      —Must a little weep, Love,
      —Foolish me!
      And so fall asleep, Love,
      Loved by thee.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Symbols

    • Symbol The Apple/Tree

      The Apple/Tree

      The "tree" and its tempting red "apple" symbolize the truth at the heart of the argument between the speaker and her lover. When the speaker mentions these objects, she's alluding to the story of Adam and Eve: in the Bible, the devil, disguised as a serpent, tempts Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As punishment, God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

      The speaker warns against getting anywhere near this tree because she doesn't want to "lose" her own "Eden." To "pry" this apple from the tree, in the poem, would mean to keep "prying" into the truth of the situation between herself and her lover. Instead of seeking answers or insisting on being right, the speaker declares that it's best to "shun" the tree altogether. She doesn't want to risk getting kicked out of paradise—symbolically, losing the comfort and security of her relationship.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Repetition

      "A Woman's Last Word" contains quite a bit of repetition, which helps draw attention to its major themes. For example, the speaker calls her partner "Love" throughout the poem (as in, "Let's contend no more, Love," and, "All be as before, Love"). This repetition creates a soothing, even hypnotic cadence. "Love" is a common pet name and it makes sense that the speaker is using this affectionate word to calm her partner down before bed and convince him to set aside their argument for the night.

      Much of the poem's repetition takes the form of diacope. Take "Cheek on cheek" in line 12, where the repetition of "cheek" brings the image the speaker is describing to life: the arrangement of those words on the page evokes the speaker and her partner pressing their faces together.

      The diacope of "false" in stanza 4 is also evocative:

      What so false as truth is,
      False to thee?

      The speaker is saying that truth seems "false"—like a lie—but then she qualifies this statement: it only seems so "to thee," to her partner. She understands that the "truth" of the matter is going to be left to his discretion. The repetition of "false" emphasizes his disinclination to believe anything she has to say.

      The most repetition-heavy stanza in the poem is stanza 7. This makes sense, given that in these lines the speaker is declaring her intention to do whatever he lover tells her to do:

      Teach me, only teach, Love!
      As I ought,
      I will speak thy speech, Love,
      Think thy thought—

      There are a couple of different kinds of repetition in these lines: more diacope (the repetition of "Teach," "Love," and "thy"); polyptoton (the repetition of words that share a root: "speak" and "speech" and "Think" and "thought"); and general parallelism ("speak thy speech," "Think thy thought"). Altogether, this intensely repetitive language mirrors what the speaker is saying to her lover: in order to smooth things over, she's willing to give up her thoughts and opinions and adopt his instead, if he'll only forgive her and come to bed. Indeed, the diacope of "thy" hammers home that the speaker is handing the reigns over to her partner here: it will be "thy speech" and "thy thought" that shapes the conversation moving forward.

      Given this context, the repetition of "Love" feels a little more loaded in this stanza. Now, it sounds like the speaker is not just using a term of endearment because she loves her partner, but also because she's afraid of what will happen if he doesn't calm down and let this go.

    • Parallelism

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    • Allusion

    • Metaphor

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Contend
    • Strive
    • Thou
    • Bough
    • Thee
    • Shun
    • Pry
    • Edens
    • Eve
    • Thine
    • Thy
    Contend

    • Argue.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Woman's Last Word”

    • Form

      "A Woman's Last Word" consists of 40 lines arranged in 10 quatrains (four-line stanzas). The poem's lines are generally quite short, and each stanza is headed by a numeral. As a result, each quatrain feels dramatically discrete, like a brief vignette. The speaker wants this fight to end and to go to bed, so it makes sense that she keeps the stanzas short and sweet. The poem also uses a regular trochaic meter and alternating, ABAB rhyme scheme, which together lend the poem some predictable music.

      Many of these stanzas also read like aphorisms; it sounds, at times, as though the speaker isn't just sharing her own experience but also making pithy, generalized statements about how to handle arguments with a man. She's espousing the kind of advice that was common in Victorian England: that women should be soft and compliant, accepting a man's word as "truth."

    • Meter

      "A Woman's Last Word" is written in a mixture of trochaic trimeter and trochaic dimeter. The basic foot here is the trochee, which consists of two syllables arranged in a stressed-unstressed rhythm: DUM-da. Odd-numbered lines contain three trochees (trochaic trimeter) while even-numbered lines contain just two (trochaic dimeter). Lines 1 and 2 illustrate this meter in action:

      Let's con- | tend no | more, Love,
      Strive nor | weep—

      The movement from stressed to unstressed beats creates what's known as a falling rhythm. Here, that rhythm subtly evokes the way this woman is giving in to her "Love's" demands.

      And yet, the poem still feels quite forceful at times. This is because the poem's even-numbered lines are catalectic, meaning they're missing their final syllables and end, instead, on stressed beats. These lines' shorter length combined with catalexis makes these lines sound truncated and even a bit blunt. This, in turn, subtly mimics the way the speaker feels she must stuff her feelings down in order to make it through the night. This woman is giving in to her "Love"—but that catalexis makes it sound like she's doing so in firm a way that leaves no room for further discussion.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      The poem follows a simple ABAB rhyme scheme. The first and third lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, as do the second and fourth. This rhyme scheme is fitting for this poem about an arguing couple: the poem's alternating rhyme pattern echoes the way these two people have been having a heated back-and-forth.

      Note, too, that there are a surprising number of identical rhymes in the poem: "Love"/"Love" in stanza 1, "are"/"are" in stanza 2, and so on. These identical rhymes perhaps evoke the way that the speaker feels the need to mirror her man's "thought" and "speech" in order to keep the peace.

      There's also a slant rhyme between lines 17 and 19 ("reddens" and "Edens"). This slightly off-kilter rhyme draws attention to what the speaker stands to lose if she doesn't get on board with her lover's opinions and let go of her own. That is, if she keeps pushing, she's in danger of being kicked out of her own personal paradise—or at least losing this relationship that obviously matters to her.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Speaker

    • The speaker of this poem is a woman who has been fighting with her lover and, now, just wants to stop arguing and go to sleep. The woman's attitudes evoke the beliefs of the Victorian era in which Browning wrote: namely, that it is the woman's responsibility to acquiesce, submit, placate, etc. In other words, the speaker believes that since she and her partner are in a standoff with no sign of either of them changing their mind, it is her job to let go of being right.

      Indeed, the speaker goes so far as to say she risks her relationship if she doesn't accept her lover's perspective. She compares herself to "Eve" from the Bible, whose eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil got her and Adam kicked out of paradise.

      The poem's title—"A Woman's Last Word"—might mean the speaker is in some very real danger (perhaps these are her last words ever). Alternatively, they might mean that she's actually the one in control here, technically getting "the last word" in this fight by giving in. The ambiguity means the speaker can be read as either a tragic figure or a clever one who finds a way to twist rigid gender norms to her advantage. Either way, though, the speaker is in a situation where her only real option is to fawn and flatter the man she's with, which says as much about the culture she lives in as it does about her own desire for the argument to end.

  • “A Woman's Last Word” Setting

    • "A Woman's Last Word" takes place at bedtime, presumably in bed, as the speaker begs her lover to put aside the argument they've apparently been having for some time so that they can go to sleep.

      Other than the time of day, though, the poem's setting is vague; the speaker isn't relaying a clear scene so much as the thoughts that arise as she's trying to placate her partner. The "birds" and "Hawk" in the tree and "the creature stalking" are all metaphorical, meant to illustrate the idea that continued bickering will only spell trouble for them both.

      While the poem itself doesn't identify when in history or where in the world these lovers are fighting, its language and attitudes are very indicative of the Victorian era in which it was written.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “A Woman's Last Word”

      Literary Context

      The English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) was most famous in his time for not sounding much like a poet. His contemporaries were confused by his most distinctive works: dramatic monologues in which Browning inhabited a character like an actor playing a part. Even Oscar Wilde, a big Browning fan, famously said that "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Victorian literary world was much more at ease with the melancholy lyricism of Tennyson or the elegance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Browning's wife, and a much more famous poet) than with the novelistic storytelling of Browning's work.

      But it's on his vibrant dramatic monologues that Browning's enduring reputation rests. His most famous poems form a veritable rogues' gallery, with narrators from a corrupt bishop to a murderous Italian duke to an equally murderous lover. By allowing these hideous men to speak for themselves, Browning explored the darkest corners of human nature—and took a particular interest in the ways that people justify their terrible deeds. Villains, Browning's monologues suggest, don't tend to think that they're villains.

      Of course, Browning's poetry wasn't all theatrical murder and greed. The speaker of "A Woman's Last Word" is just an ordinary woman hoping for a little bit of peace and quiet so she can sleep. At the same time, her self-negating attempts to pacify her lover suggest something very dark indeed about the expectations placed on women in Victorian society.

      "A Woman's Last Word" was published in Browning's 1855 collection, Men and Women. The book is made up of 51 dramatic lyrics, most of them told from a fictional character's point of view.

      Historical Context

      Browning wrote during Britain's Victorian era, the period from 1837 to 1901 during which Queen Victoria ruled England. Throughout this period, a sentimental and oppressive ideal of womanhood dominated British culture. Particularly in middle- and upper-class households, women were expected to be "angels in the house," as one popular Victorian saying has it—dedicated to the comfort of their husbands and sons, constrained to domestic duties, while men worked in public life and in business. Women were also expected to adhere to a strict code of sexual morals: a woman must be chaste, pliant, and submissive, and any deviation could mean social exile.Given this context, it becomes all the more understandable why the speaker of "A Woman's Last Word" would be so eager to placate her angry male partner.

      As the century wore on, a tide of early feminism rose up against these reductive and oppressive ideals. Women began to demand education, independence, and political power. Both Browning and his wife would comment on the "Woman Question" in their art. The male Browning, for his part, wrote psychologically subtle dramatic monologues in which men oppress women in the guise of "loving" them (see: "A Face"). While this particular poem doesn't explicitly comment on Victorian misogyny, it does suggest the pressure placed on a woman of Browning's day to bend to her husband's will.

  • More “A Woman's Last Word” Resources

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