Rossetti tells a story of sinister, fatal and family betrayal through Sister Maude and the pain and suffering that is a result of it. The rhyming quatrain style structure which is written in first person to achieve a more intense personal tone presents to the reader the deep emotions the speaker felt as they were even writing the words as though they were re living the memory. Rossetti uses a variety of language techniques to emphasise the speaker’s eternal frustration because of her sister’s actions. These include rhetorical questioning, alliteration, similes and metaphors.
Throughout the poem a regular rhyme scheme follows its pattern until disturbed during the final stanza which is the longest. The a,b,c,b d,e,f,e pattern grounds Rossetti’s words to flow more freely implying there is a deeper hidden tone of maliciousness apparent in the speaker’s voice.
Rossetti uses language to present the deepened anger and outrage that is held against the speaker’s sister, Maude. The last line of the poem contains iambic trimeter as sister Maude is left by sister to ‘Bide you with death and sin’ this suggests that because like a heart, iambic trimeter has a dum dee dum rhythm that as this is the last thing she wants to say to her sister it’s a deep meaningful anger coming from the heart. The last line reinforces the speaker’s feelings from throughout the poem. The emphasis from the effect on the words ‘you’, ‘death’ and ‘sin’ allows the speaker to effectively settle Maude’s doomed fate. This pleases the reader as they have seen the speaker win over their evil opponent. The Plosive ‘b’ in ‘Bide’ is more or less spat when read which allows Rossetti to truly present the speaker’s feelings of vehemence and rage towards her sister Maude. This last line sums up the theme of the poem to the reader which is why it is ultimately the most effective. The frustration her sister has