The Narrator
The narrator of the poem “Marriage” is male (cf. l. 78: “I’d be that kind of father”) and apparently lives in the USA (as the poem takes place there). The reader gets to know his deep wish for marriage and a family as well as his fear of eventually ending up alone through the stream of consciousness form of the poem. Throughout the poem the narrator imagines how his life would turn out if he were to get married and move into a small town to have a traditional life. This implies that he is currently neither in a relationship nor has any children.
While the content of the eighth stanza reveals that the narrator appears to place himself more within a lower class environment, this might only be due to his exaggeration of alternate living scenarios. In fact, the narrator displays detailed knowledge of classical art in stanza six, which implies that he is educated (even though the audience never learns the extend of his current living situation). Furthermore, in stanza eight the narrator gives small hints about his age when he exclaims “what if I’m 60 years old and not married” (l. 105), and then complaining that “everybody else is married” (l. 107). This implies that the fact that the people around him getting married is a new state and that he is currently far away from being 60 years old. Therefore, the narrator is likely in his mid thirties, at the stage of where most people around him have started a family and he is beginning to feel left out.
In the first seven stanzas of the poem the narrator pretends that he has little respect for a traditional small town life as he is gleefully imagining ways of shocking and mocking every step of it. Stanza eight however, reveals the deep need of the narrator to be part of society and to not stand out as an outcast. Foremost however, the narrator appears deeply scared to die alone.
The Girl next Door
The fictional girl from next door first appears in stanza one and serves as the narrator’s imagined girlfriend, wife and mother of his child throughout stanzas one to six. In line 18 the narrator gives her the name “Mary Lou”, although it is unlikely that she is based on a real person, but rather the stereotypical kind of woman the narrator thinks to fit into this traditional scenario.
At first, the narrator claims that he would woo her in an unusual way, taking her to cemeteries rather than out for normal dates which implies a certain adventurous spirit that the narrator imagines in her as this makes her fall in love with him. She is portrayed to have a loving family which happily welcomes the narrator into their fold. This implies that her family life (and childhood) was very harmonious, with caring parents and that close contact with her family even after marriage is expected (as her parents immediately take to calling the narrator “son” in line 22).
While she is mostly passive during the wedding and honeymoon in stanzas three and four, the narrator then goes on to describe her as a perfectly devoted and loving housewife in stanza five, which portrays their hypothetical early years of marriage. The narrator imagines her to be fully in love with him, devoted and eager to create a loving and perfect home for them, including children that she would yearn for. His imagined scenario of her coming to him in tears after accidentally ruining their dinner implies that the narrator sees himself as the typical head of the family and his young wife almost child-like naïve (indeed, he calls his chair a “big papa chair” in line 54, which further depicts his paternal position in the household).
The “fat Reichian wife” (l. 82) & the “beautiful sophisticated woman” (l. 91)
In stanza seven the narrator imagines two entirely contrasting lives for him in New York City that would follow the marriages to two contrasting types of women. Both women are implied to be what the narrator sees as the typical wife in the respective circumstances, without any individual traits to set them apart or any agency.
In the first scenario, the narrator imagines himself to be unemployed, living under terrible conditions and with little money. His wife in this scenario is described in very unflattering ways, as very thick, constantly nagging him and of unattractive physical features. In this scenario they have a large number of children as well. In the contrasting scenario, the narrator marries a “beautiful sophisticated woman” (l. 92) who appears to be the exact opposite of the first wife. With her, the narrator lives in a beautiful New York home, ostensibly without children, in luxury.
