In Woman's Constancy, by John Donne, the writer uses diction and catalogue to show his or her uncertainty and instability of their marriage. From the beginning of the poem, there is a hint of irony and satire from the 1st line to the actual title of the poem. When you first see the title of the poem, you might automatically think that it'll be something nice and romantic towards women, but its actually the complete opposite. Personally, I thats what I thought of when I first read the title because I know that John Donne is considered a metaphysical and romantic poet but I was completely surprised by the actual poem.
In Woman's Constancy, Donne uses a lot of diction in the poem to describe the confusion the speaker has about the condition of his or her marriage. Throghout the poem, there is a tone of anger and uncertainty bcuz the speaker feels as if their lover/spouse isn't fully committed or faithful. The diction also reveals that the speaker doesn't really believe in the true power or spiritual aspect of marriage.
In my opinion, I feel that the speaker really wanted to have a good marriage but they didnt really believe in the true meaning of marriage. When I look at the diction, I feel that the speaker saw his or her marriage as more of a legal agreement than a spiritual connection. For example, Donne uses words like oaths, contracts, and vow and, this shows that the speaker sees the legal component to marriage but they arent really seeing it from a spiritual or romantic aspect. Also, the speaker uses words like fear, wrath, untie, death, unloose, and dispute. These words show that the speaker has no connection with their spouse and there is a feeling of separation because the words untie and unloose show that theres no type of unity or trust within their marriage or relationship.
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The people concerned are clearly NOT married. If they were, the poem would make no sense whatever. Married people will have been in love longer than a day. And one of the pseudo-arguments the narrator of the poem uses is to compare their 'lover's contract' to a pale image of the marriage contract, just as sleep is a pale image of death. The poem is about what it says: a new relationship, which the poet assumes will not last. And he says that either of them could equally well bring it to an end using one of a number of deliberately preposterous arguments in self-justification. Typical Donne tongue-in-cheek.
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