Light Woman in the Poem,

¶ … Light Woman

In the poem, "A Light Woman," Browning depicts the story of two friends and a woman. The woman, according to the speaker, is a frivolous type - hence the adjective "light." She is only interested in what men can offer her in terms of status and reputation. Thus she attempts first to ensnare the speaker's friend, but because of the speaker's intervention, ensnares the latter instead. In his attempt to "help" his friend however, the speaker encounters a situation in which the friend resents him for having won the "prize" of the woman, and for being disloyal towards the existing friendship. This indicates that, according to the scorned friend, the speaker should have left well enough alone.

The speaker's motivation in "helping" his friend appears to be sincere at first. Indeed, it is precisely because he does not wish to lose his friend to the woman that he acts as he does. However, an interesting element is that he does not hold the man he calls his friend in as high regard as he does himself. He symbolically refers to himself as an "eagle," in Stanza VI, for example, whereas his friend is a much less spectacular "wren." Still, it appears that this comparison is made for the purpose of demonstrating how shallow the woman is.

In this stanza it becomes increasingly clear that the speaker himself is not as helpful or as deep as he supposes himself to be initially. Instead, it appears increasingly clear that he matches the woman in frivolity, pursuing her without regard for his friend's feelings. Furthermore, there does not appear to be any attempt on his part to explain his initial motives to his friend. He pursues the woman aggressively under the guise of nobly attempting to save his less sophisticated friend not only from the woman, but also from himself. In doing so, he is himself a willing captive of the woman's attentions.

In associating with the light woman, the speaker then becomes light himself. Even in the face of his friend's accusations, he makes no attempt to justify himself or his motives. Nor does he attempt to remedy the broken friendship. While there is a pang or two of conscience, it does not seem that these bother the speaker. Instead, he wholeheartedly accepts himself as frivolous and cruel, just like the light woman, with no respect for the friendship that he initially claims to save. The power of the speaker's self-deception reaches a culmination in Stanza XII, where he admits that he had been playing "with souls." Yet still he justifies himself by claiming that his friend had been saved from the snares of the woman. As for himself, he admits that he cannot claim any heroism, despite his noblest of intentions during the first stanzas of the poem.

The final stanza is interesting in this regard. Firstly, the speaker admits that the story is not to reach any further culmination beyond achieving the prize of the woman. His friend may have been rescued from himself, but at the cost of the friendship. Secondly, the poet refers to himself, Robert Browning. The poem then achieves an artistic twist, where the poet addresses the subject matter, free from the emotion or the morality that were part of the rest of the poem. In art, the poet appears to claim, there is no need for morality when the situation presented is interesting. Art, he appears to say, addresses the whole spectrum of human experience. It presents the reader with an entertaining story, and with an emotion experienced through the eyes of the character experiencing the events.

In the case of the speaker, the reader as outsider experiences the power of self-deception and the justification of actions that are less than laudable. In retrospect, the speaker's initial intention to save his friend from the light woman appears hollow and insincere. Instead, it appears that the situation is contrived specifically for the benefit of the speaker rather than for the friend. This is substantiated by the fact that, even in the face of his friend's direct accusation, the speaker makes no attempt to heal the broken friendship. In fact, the reader can almost see the speaker shrug off these accusation with the one remaining justification, that the friend was on a self-destructive road. The friend's retort appears all the more poignant for the speaker's insincerity: the speaker should have kept himself under control for the sake of loyalty to the friendship. The poet's intention with this poem therefore appears to be to depict the speaker's basic insincerity, disloyalty towards his friend, and the power of his self-deception in justifying his actions not to his friend, but to himself and to the reader. These all contribute to the loss of the friendship, and ultimately to suitable material for the piece of art created by Robert Browning.

The poet uses several elements to achieve this end. Firstly, the title and its focus is an interesting choice. The title of the poem, "A Light Woman," is interesting for a variety of reasons. The most important of these is its focus on the woman instead of on the speaker or the ruined friendship depicted by the poem itself. The title draws the reader's attention away from the speaker and his actions. It is therefore part of the basic sense of deception perpetuated by the speaker. The title places the focus on the woman and her frivolity. With this, the poem attempts to substantiate the speaker's lies - the fault lies with the woman, and not with the speaker. For some time during the course of the poem this works. The reader is deceived into believing that the light woman is central to the broken friendship.

This idea of the woman as central to the deception is substantiated by the last two lines of the first stanza, when the reader is asked who deserves the most pity: "My friend, the mistress of my friend / With her wanton eyes, or me?" (line 3-4). These two lines perpetuate the deception in two ways. Firstly, the "mistress" is positioned between the friend and the speaker. She furthermore receives the qualification "with her wanton eyes," indicating that she is the one who deceives and entraps. This visualizes the idea that she severed the bond between the two friends. In retrospect, however, the reader knows that this is not true. This irrevocably unmasks the speaker as the one who deceives and who himself was responsible for the break in the friendship. Secondly, an even clearer case of deception is the second part of the qualification, "...of my friend." The rest of the poem makes it clear that the woman never did belong to the friend. In fact, before he had a chance to become properly acquainted with her, the speaker intervened and took her for himself. Hence the answer to this initial question is likely to be that the reader pities the friend the most.

To perpetuate this pity, the poet also uses the element of metaphor in terms of the three main characters in the poem's story line. The eagle and wren imagery is addressed above. The poet sees himself as much more sophisticated, and also as a much better prize than his hapless friend. The friend however, once it becomes clear to him what his friend has done, does not quite agree with this point-of-view. Stanza VII depicts these feelings in no uncertain terms. The speaker is depicted as a "basilisk" "eclipsing his sun's disc." In other words, the friend is absolutely devastated by the betrayal. It is a huge deception that cannot be overcome, and the friendship is irrevocably damaged. In Stanza VIII the friend's breakdown is visualized in the breakdown of metaphor, when the speaker is referred to merely as a "thief."

The light woman herself is portrayed metaphorically in none too flattering terms as an overripe pear in Stanza IX, that quenches the thirst of blue flies. In this stanza, the speaker's self-deception and justification reach a climax. He argues that she was more than ready to make the choice for the speaker instead of the friend. He even appears to claim that he had not choice but to take here, rather than leave her to fall like a pear from its branch into the road, never to be eaten. As such, the poet claims to have rescued her from falling while there was still time. This is an interesting turn of events in the light of the fact that the initial intention was to save the friend.

In terms of salvation, the speaker refers to "playing with souls" in Stanza XII. He does not seem very upset by the fact that he does this, as indicated by his diction in this stanza. He refers to what he has done as merely "awkward," while he has given no attention to the salvation of his own soul. In this way he trivializes what he has done, appearing not to care who is hurt in the process. This indicates that the friendship he refers to never truly existed in the first place. Indeed, in Stanza XIII, he has the audacity to make a claim for the "truth."