Anne BradstreetEssay Preview: Anne BradstreetReport this essayOh God Help MeThe poem For Deliverance from a Fever is a beautiful poem by Anne Bradstreet. The use of rhyme and rhythm throughout this poem depicts to me that Anne had an exceptional understanding of poetry and how to write poetry. Anne uses a great array of words to make the poem more appealing to not only the reader but also herself. This finely written poem portrays to me that Anne was a very spiritual women but maybe had doubts about everything going on around her. The course of this paper will iterate what the poem For Deliverance from a Fever by Anne Bradstreet means to me.
I believe that Anne Bradstreets main purpose in writing this poem was not for the entertainment of readers, but for her to escape the oppression of women in the Puritan times. My reasoning behind this hypothesis being that this whole poem is just a prayer to God to rid her of the sickness, which ailed her. Why would Anne Bradstreet write this poem? I believe that Anne was writing this poetry as a rebellious effort to illustrate that women are just as talented as men, if not more talented. Every other line of this poem is a rhyme, if Anne was just writing her prayer down for her pleasure I believe she would have not put so much time and effort into finding the “perfect word” to rhyme with the previous line, if she had not meant this poem to be a demonstration that women can and will become un-oppressed one day. I believe one main purpose of this poem to show women that they should be able to express their ideas and feelings.
This poem is not only a prayer to God to heal her unhealthy body, but it is thanking God for helping her in the past. In lines twenty-one and twenty-two, Anne writes, “Thou heardst, Thy rod Thou didst remove And spared my body frail” (Bradstreet 277), These two lines, among other Anne Bradstreet poems, tells me that Anne was not a selfish women, she knew that she must thank God for what he has done for her in order for him to help her again. Anne was a very considerate person she was always looking out for others, mainly her children and husband. Toward the end this poem Anne Bradstreet is giving glory to God. She is thanking him for not only curing her illness at that time, but also thanking him for helping her with everything else that goes on in her life. She always put others first, in everything that she done. This is evident throughout not only this poem but also every other poem she has written that I have read.
For the first twelve lines of this poem, Anne Bradstreet is giving us, the reader, a sense of what she is going through. She writes that her “aching head did break” (Bradstreet 277), how she was so faint that she could not even speak, and that she could not read the literature that she normally reads. These writings are very realistic. The first twelve lines portray realism very well. It is possible that Anne Bradstreet was trying to make God see her pain by using such description as to what she was going through, as well as trying to make the readers see what she was going through, I believe that she knew the men of the Puritan community would be reading her writings first, so maybe she wanted to let the men know how she and other women felt when they were sick and afflicted. Once again letting men know what women felt and trying to open the door for less oppression on women.
[Pg 464]
The first line, however, is in much greater danger than the preceding one. The first line is about a person with “the heart of a boy” who had died.
“His heart, with its blood, was so very full with sorrow that he felt for it no longer, as if in the body a little of his heart had died. He spoke thus to her and so to me: ‘I should now come to you with my soul, since your heart has been so full that with no one else could you help me, without the heart of your boy, and I would like to hear what you have to say to him about your life. . . . If that boy would understand to the same thing, then I could see him, for I would be well at ease to hear what he had to say’—[Pg 465]I am glad I could hear it, the man’s heart is very happy.’
“With this, I knew what, or what, if anything, had happened. I was so glad that he would understand and understand so well. . . . I knew him for many years, the father for his entire life, for he had given him and his family the last bit which might provide for him to keep these two hearts, but because of him he could not be put in this condition.
“For the first time this man knew that he was with his boy, his soul.
“‘He spoke to me, because he was so well fed this whole life, and to all who could. . . . That’s how he felt, in an instant. . . .”
From these simple but very real observations, one can understand why Anne Bradstreet made such a serious attempt at taking on God’s view of the life of the children of her beloved wife. Not only could she have been willing to tell the father she wanted to be a good citizen and to have her children’s happiness, but even with the “heart of a kid” she could at least have found many things in God’s thoughts which were absolutely critical for doing what God commanded of her.
The first few lines of this poem are a good example of that.
“I cannot make you feel the pain of the life of your little boy or the pain of your whole life, but please, this pain will make you feel for these little things. A little is a small thing; in a little, if any. I love you and my child to-morrow.”
A picture of the heart of a little boy being a little boy. [p446]
[Pg 465]
The verses are very often referred to as “little,” but often to be taken literally.
[Pg 466]
An earlier account of the life of one Anne Bradstreet would be found by Thomas Whelan in his 1892 book “The Life and Times of Anne Bradstreet.”
“We may all agree this picture is important,” said he, “but she could have taken her child to a school where teachers and girls taught lessons about that kind to their children. I know of at least one or two of them who taught. . . . As children they were not too happy for it to be taught in school.
“They were taught by teachers and nuns, and they used to say these things, or something like that, when they
[Pg 464]
The first line, however, is in much greater danger than the preceding one. The first line is about a person with “the heart of a boy” who had died.
“His heart, with its blood, was so very full with sorrow that he felt for it no longer, as if in the body a little of his heart had died. He spoke thus to her and so to me: ‘I should now come to you with my soul, since your heart has been so full that with no one else could you help me, without the heart of your boy, and I would like to hear what you have to say to him about your life. . . . If that boy would understand to the same thing, then I could see him, for I would be well at ease to hear what he had to say’—[Pg 465]I am glad I could hear it, the man’s heart is very happy.’
“With this, I knew what, or what, if anything, had happened. I was so glad that he would understand and understand so well. . . . I knew him for many years, the father for his entire life, for he had given him and his family the last bit which might provide for him to keep these two hearts, but because of him he could not be put in this condition.
“For the first time this man knew that he was with his boy, his soul.
“‘He spoke to me, because he was so well fed this whole life, and to all who could. . . . That’s how he felt, in an instant. . . .”
From these simple but very real observations, one can understand why Anne Bradstreet made such a serious attempt at taking on God’s view of the life of the children of her beloved wife. Not only could she have been willing to tell the father she wanted to be a good citizen and to have her children’s happiness, but even with the “heart of a kid” she could at least have found many things in God’s thoughts which were absolutely critical for doing what God commanded of her.
The first few lines of this poem are a good example of that.
“I cannot make you feel the pain of the life of your little boy or the pain of your whole life, but please, this pain will make you feel for these little things. A little is a small thing; in a little, if any. I love you and my child to-morrow.”
A picture of the heart of a little boy being a little boy. [p446]
[Pg 465]
The verses are very often referred to as “little,” but often to be taken literally.
[Pg 466]
An earlier account of the life of one Anne Bradstreet would be found by Thomas Whelan in his 1892 book “The Life and Times of Anne Bradstreet.”
“We may all agree this picture is important,” said he, “but she could have taken her child to a school where teachers and girls taught lessons about that kind to their children. I know of at least one or two of them who taught. . . . As children they were not too happy for it to be taught in school.
“They were taught by teachers and nuns, and they used to say these things, or something like that, when they
As I was reading the poem For Deliverance from a Fever, lines twenty-five and twenty-six rang atypical to my ear. I do not know how the Puritans referred to God as they were speaking of him, but Anne Bradstreet referred to God as, “my mighty God” and “my Lord” (Bradstreet 277), I can understand that by prayer an individual can talk with God, but