Anna Laetitia Barbauld's "Washing-Day": A Mock-Heroic Analysis

Introduction: Competing Interpretations

There are various critical views and approaches to Anna Laetitia Barbauld's poem "Washing-Day." A common view is that it concerns the suffering and hardship of women compared to men. However, a more insightful interpretation holds that the poem is intended to be ironic and uses a mock-heroic tone as one of its main devices to express its central theme. The central theme, therefore, is a satire of everyday domestic activities, rather than a meditation on tragedy or social suffering. As this analysis will show, the poem examines the common activities of working women and critiques them from an ironic and slightly mocking distance. However, the final section of the poem also achieves a more sublime view of humanity in which all activities, great and small, are reduced to the same level and seen as part of the essential pattern of art and artistic creation.

The use of the mock-heroic tone is established in the poem's very first lines:

The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost
The buskin'd step, and clear high-sounding phrase,
Language of gods….
(lines 1–3)

These lines suggest that the Muses, usually associated with serious and elevated artistic themes, are reduced to mere "gossips." In other words, the poet uses the mock-heroic style from the outset to signal the mundane nature of the events that are to be described. This device is typically employed for satirical purposes, exposing or revealing the true nature of events or character through obvious exaggeration — that is, through hyperbole. Hyperbole is a stylistic device that reveals the real nature of events by exaggerating certain aspects to an obvious degree, and it is used extensively throughout the poem.

The Mock-Heroic Tone and Its Function

The Muse is therefore reduced to an image of common, almost vulgar daily activity. The following lines paint an uncompromising picture of women preparing for washing day. Note that while washing day is a common experience, it is given a tragic and mocking description culminating in the phrase "the dreaded Washing-Day" (line 8):

In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on
Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream,
Or drowning flies, or shoe lost in the mire
By little whimpering boy, with rueful face;
Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded Washing-Day.
(lines 4–8)

These lines offer a strong example of the poem's use of imagery and language. The poet carefully selects and juxtaposes images that suggest the ordinary activities of washing day. Descriptive phrases such as "prattling on" and "drowning flies" add to the realism and mundanity of the scene. These images are then mockingly offered as a preamble to the "dreaded Washing-Day." Metaphor is also used to describe the women who are clearly unhappy in their daily round of duties; they are referred to as those who "beneath the yoke of wedlock bend" (line 9), implying a degree of suffering and subservience. One must continually bear in mind, however, that the "suffering" the women undergo amounts to little more than a washing day. An understanding of the mock-heroic and ironic style is therefore essential for a comprehensive reading of the poem.

The poem places heavy emphasis on the portentous signs of the coming washing day, using hyperbole to build tension and expectation:

…for to that day nor peace belongs
Nor comfort…
(lines 12–13)

The poem continues with increasingly exaggerated omens of looming tragedy. The poet cleverly creates an atmosphere of dire threat and potential disaster through imagery and careful language choices. Consider the following lines:

Imagery, Hyperbole, and the Build-Up of Tension

The silent breakfast-meal is soon dispatch'd
Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks
(lines 19–20)

The approaching "doom" is emphasized by word order and by the placement of active verbs at the end of each line. Telling adjectives such as "lowering sky" further stress the apparent awesomeness of the coming washing day. The following lines then make an obviously ironic comparison between the mundane images of washing day and genuinely tragic events in history:

Saints have been calm while stretched upon the rack,
And Guatimozin smil'd on burning coals;
But never yet did housewife notable
Greet with a smile a rainy washing-day.
(lines 29–32)

The reference to the death of the Mexican Emperor Guatimozin makes the concerns of the maids and housewives seem extremely trivial, and it stands as a fine example of how the mock-heroic mode makes its point through satire.