Sample essay on poem

Literature: Essay writing 

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Explore the ways in which the Wordsworth presents Lucy in

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

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In his poem, William Wordsworth presents us Lucy in a very special way.From the title itself, we can notice his use of formal words from ancient languages used to describe her: “she dwelt among the untrodden ways”, where we become aware that he talks about a woman who seems to have lived in a place where no one has stepped; a different or deserted place. Along the poem, and through different images and metaphors, we  discover that she was a single and lonely woman, who is dead at his present time, “a maid whom there was none to praise”. Wordsworth portrays her as a lovely and delicate lady by means of a yearning appositive, where visual images and metaphors overrun. “A violet by a mossy stone”, he says, and makes us think of such a special being that makes contrast with the rest; she is portrayed as the one, compared not just with a fair star, but “fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky”. However, people cannot see her, because she is “hidden from the eye”; there is something next to her that does not allow her beauty and delicacy to be perceived by the rest, which could perhaps be another man, as much cold and hostile as a “mossy stone”.It is not until the last stanza, that we find out her name, Lucy, and that she is currently dead “few could know when Lucy ceased to be” and away from the only one that could have valued her for who she was, and how shedeserved: “(…) oh, the difference to me!”In conclusion, although he does not mention Lucy until reaching the end of the poem, the author, helped by quite amatory similes, metaphors and visual images, gets to move the reader by recreating a fragile, unique and desolated female being.