“Jewellery-substitutes”
The fake costume jewelry that the brides wear to the weddings suggests that they’re lower-class, unable to afford real jewelry for such an occasion. It also illustrates the artifice the speaker sees in the weddings, just as the pomaded hair and couples posing do. Because of their lower-class status, these brides fall short of reaching the ideal of a wedding, for which women often pay exorbitant amounts in order to look beautiful, and the effect is “farcical,” as the speaker remarks later.
“Arrow-shower”
The shower of arrows at the conclusion of the poem recalls the mythical Greek god Cupid shooting arrows at lovers, inspiring emotion when there previously was none. The scene in “The Whitsun Weddings” is surprisingly sterile for the aftermath of a wedding, and an injection of emotion from Cupid would be welcome. But the speaker qualifies the image with the arrows’ transformation into rain. Rain is an ambiguous symbol—a rainy, stormy day suggests sadness and turmoil, but rain is also necessary for growth, such as for a newly planted seed. The poem thus ends in a manner open to interpretation.
