Love Case

Love: a feeling of caring for somebody, whether it involves family, friends, or a partner. Love may exist at different levels, from merely caring for a person's well-being to romantically loving them. Sometimes, however, love will benefit two people if they remain to friends. The poem, Promises Like Pie-Crust, by Christina Rossetti, presents a story line of struggling with the prospect of love. The speaker of the poem portrays a conflict often lost in a cliché: friendship versus the question of romantic love. Doubt sometimes appears in romantic love, causing the couple to split. Through the author's background, structure, diction, and different examples of figurative language, the poem's story, based on an extended metaphor, becomes heart wrenching and evokes a sense of sorrow for the failing couple.

The title of the poem presents the main theme: the many hardships found in relationships. The title comes from an English Proverb that states, "promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken." Pie crusts, like relationships, require patience between both parties and a careful balancing of ingredients to get everything working properly. Even though pie crusts need to stay together, they sometimes fall apart like relationships. The proverb relates to the poem's meaning because it relates directly to the speaker. She emits an idea that causes the reader to believe that her relationship relates to a pie crust's breaking. Throughout the poem, the speaker discusses the hardships of keeping promises, just like the difficulty in creating a well-made and strong crust.

The story of the poem seems to reflect the situations from the author's love life. Throughout her life, Christina Rossetti experienced problems with three different men. In her teenage years, Rossetti became engaged to one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, James Collonsin. Unfortunately, their engagement came to an end when he converted to Catholicism. Charles Cayley appeared into Rossetti's love life next, but when he proposed, she felicitously razed the relationship for religious reasons. Rossetti also winnowed the painter, John Brett, when he proposed that they get married. These real-life situations appear as the author focuses on a young lady fretting over a friendship and facing the prospect of love. Maybe the feelings of doubt aroused from one of her relationships influenced Rossitti to concoct the saturnine poem, giving the speaker doubtful ideas about committed love.

Shaped by her internal conflicts from the past, the speaker's attitude on the specter of love reveals itself. The speaker substantiates her hesitancy when she observes that she "cannot know [his] past/ And of [her's] what can he know" (l. 7-8). This delineates an atmosphere of secrecy in the relationship. The speaker's history obviously bothers her, causing her to feel doubt in moving the relationship to a deeper level if the two cannot share their past. Lines 9-14 reflect her speculation on the inevitable problems that the disclosure of their history would present. She speculates that even though his feelings are warm towards her, they may have reached levels deeper in an earlier relationship. Even though the speaker shows reserve on the issue of love, she may have experienced love more deeply earlier in her life. In either situation, wonder if the remnant of an earlier, truer love still exists. She states that they need to "hold the die uncast" (l. 5). The speaker projects the value of individual freedom to hide her feeling of hopelessness. The uncast die also leads to a situation where unanswered questioning leaves them "never false and never true" (l. 4). Sadly, the prospect of their abrogated love "fades the image from the glass/ And the fortune is not told" (l. 15-16). So, the poet's internal conflicts stifle any hope of romantic love as fear gives way to hopelessness.

Repetition strengthens the poem's meaning by putting emphasis on important words. The word "promise" shows up often in the poem. She repeats this word to present her lover with a clear understanding that their love revolves around nothing but promises. The speaker says "promise me no promises" (l. 1). This makes it clear that the speaker frets over promises, considering the two committed too many promises and yet their love shows signs of ending. The speaker also fears that if they make another promise, she will break it, just like all of the other promises she made. The speaker again uses repetition when she says, "Nothing more but nothing less" (l.23). The repetition of "nothing" aims toward their friendship. She feels that their status should return to friends. The repetition evokes a sense of hopelessness: the overall tone of the poem.

Presented in rhythmic couplets along with a caesura at the end of each stanza, the rhythm of the poem emphasizes the speaker's purpose and feelings. The rhythm of the poem sings like a song. Infact, Carli Bruni made it into a song. Presented as "ABAB," the rhyme structure assists the production of the flowing of words that Rossetti wrote. Consonance also helps bring out the lyrical-like words. Two examples of consonance include: "For I cannot know your past" (l.7), and "thus indeed of time and old" (l. 14). These examples help the words flow and help evince a sense of confusion. Her confusion leads to fear, which leads to hopelessness.

The meaning of the poem shines brightly when the speaker includes parallelism. Found in the third stanza, the speaker indubitably explains that she just wants to return to friends: "Nothing more but nothing less" (l. 22). The speaker includes the parallelism to strengthen the idea that the relationship shows potential of extreme problems if they steer away from maintaining a friendship. The speaker says that they should keep their "liberties" (l. 3). Therefore, if they abstain from making another promise, they will become "free to come as free to go" (1. 6). If they promise "[he]