How does Tennyson use setting to build the character of Mariana?
As a character we can see that Mariana is completely combined with her setting; all of her surroundings affect her and the way she acts. “The broken sheds look’d sad and strange” this shows that they almost didn't belong there; it depicts sad emotions with gloomy imagery in the world with lost love. The sense of them being broken could reflect Mariana as damaged, showing that something significant has happened in her life to change her and as a result become sad. From the beginning I can see that in Tennyson’s own introspection is through the use of psychology, he uses descriptions of the natural world to portray the psychological status of the character.
The setting could also be seen that it is being affected by her. Tennyson describes it as “Flower-plots were thickly crusted, one and all: the rusted nails” the use of the words ‘crusted’ and ‘rusted’ are used to display the symbolic message of goodness being buried beneath a significant amount of resiliency. It also presents the strength of something that has now decayed and turned brittle. The crust hast been described as ‘thickly’ which shows the significance of how long it has stayed there and also how hard is will take for it to be uncovered; this could be a reflection of Mariana and how long she would have to wait for her lover/companion to come. The natural order is affected by her; her stagnation is not through her language but through nature; therefore the stagnation is served by personification, “a sluice with blacken’d waters slept”.
The colours used are very dark; there is a lack of colours to represent the darkest, worst period of her life. We interpret the imagery as mainly grey as it is repeated throughout the poem in descriptions of the setting, ‘about a stone-cast from the wall’. The use of grey gives the idea that life used to be there however it has now turned old and unable to fulfil its full potential; it could be colourful if it was looked after, exposing Mariana and how she needs a man, the notion of the desperation of a woman as she vainly waits for her lover. The lack of brightness gives the sense of dull and dreary which we see her personality as, her abandonment as she is emotionally crushed shows that she now has nothing to live for. There is no sense of time; there is no separation of night and day which gives the poem a perpetual brooding. Time has no significance to her as the time relevance is not needed; there is no separation of night and day so questions the reader is the sky always dark and gloomy that they cannot tell; “gray-eyed morn”. It also illustrates that nothing momentous happens; there is a lack of activity which makes the time irrelevant to her existence. The moon as ‘low’ showing that it never reaches its full potential; it is not just the setting but the character who has been abandoned.
Mariana is a static poem with no or very little action. The refrain of the poem serves as an invocation, contributing to the atmosphere of fascination. It is believed that the farmhouse has a supernatural feel to it – “lonely, moated grange” giving Mariana is stuck in a state of permanent, uncontrollable obscurity. Her realisation puts her in a state of melancholy, where she can only see the world through this darkness. Therefore Tennyson’s descriptions of the natural world mirror her psychological status. It questions the reader to think is she entrapped or trapped herself out of choice. Her mind has been abandoned by her sense therefore it could not be the farmhouse that is deserted.
Using pathetic fallacy, Tennyson uses Mariana’s emotional and psychological biases to the nature. It focuses on the dark side of things which gives it the depressive abandoned feel to the surroundings of the poem. The use of pathetic fallacy has a huge impact on the reader as it creates emotion and remorseful for this abandoned woman.
We learn that her existence is dream like, “all day within the dreamy house”. It gives Mariana a choice not to act she chooses to act somnambulistic. At this stage the poem feels passive however in a conscious state. Here we see a different side to Mariana as in a dream she could make her life anything that she sets out for it to be however she is unreasonable which could show that something is holding her back or she simply does not want to. The dreamy house could mean that it has a power which could have a positive or negative feel over her, either making her free or stopping her from doing anything.
Shadows are used to symbolise evil or even ghostly figures that has fallen on her soul, this is highlighted in the poem “the shadow of the poplar fell”. This displays a sexual provocative image which is the only sense of movement and activity that Mariana has seen in a while however we get a sense that she doesn’t want it; she choose not to act. This could be because she doesn’t want false hope and set herself up for a fall or there could be no response because she is entrapped in the notion of waiting therefore she is defined by her wait and doesn’t want to change.
Word count: 908