Challenge 330 Response

by Oonah V. Joslin

“Not His Last Duchess”

Who says “Not now!”? Normally italics would indicate emphasis, that someone is speaking loudly; or they might indicate interior monologue. Might the italics have some other purpose here?

I think that in this case the italics represent three points of view:

the girl’s fervent but unspoken hope that he is hers.

the man’s hope that he has just averted embarassment and/or discovery. Or perhaps he really has something to hide — the call might be from the Other Woman.

the onlookers’. They seem to be on her side — of course if the couple argue and leave, the voyeurism is also at an end. So many motives! So little time :)

The narrator says “Five o’clock” in Welsh presumably to point verbally to the couple at a nearby table. What does the encryption do to the readers’ understanding of the poem?

This phrase, although welcome in most of Wales and Patagonia, distances the reader as it distances the people sharing the restaurant but not the perspective of the couple and I think it is interesting — who watches the watchers?

Its other function is actually to let the readers into this rather intimate relationship in a roundabout way — a hint of a secret language shared, like the wine over 30 years.