hat a woman should be pleased to awake from a slumber where she thought she was losing her virginity to awake to a pig between her legs and still be "innocent and pleased" seems like a peculiar idea. It perhaps begins to explain some of the feelings Rochester has towards women. The idea of the woman not being in need of a man could have been a point of insult to Rochester, which could be why he describes her independence of men in such a perverse way:"Frighted she wakes, and waking frigs.Nature thus kindly easedIn dreams raised by her murmuring pigsAnd her own thumb between her legs,She's innocent and pleased."(Song: 36-40) Although the poem contains many sexual overtones, n this case, Rochester's obscenity does not seem to be directed at or motivated by any particular events going on around him, as he is basing the style of his poem on the style of Ovid's erotic poems. It does not in fact appear to be particularly obscene at first glance, in that everything he writes is cloaked in metaphor, so it is how the reader interprets the poem rather than straightforward ribaldry like some of his other poems - Signior Dildo for instance. Another poem that is similar to this song in that the rudeness doesn't seem to be motivated by his agitation with the rest of the world is The Fall. This is an important poem for Rochester. It describes in abstract terms his anxieties - which it is not his personality that he is loved for, but "a frailer part". He feels that he is in a fallen state, and that therefore there is a gap between human experience and perfect experience that he will never be able to bridge because of the fallen state he is in. Even when he is being coarse, he displays a gloomy sense of human existence. This does not become apparent until the poem is examined more closely. It seems the poem is more personal to Rochester, and concerns his own fears of inadequacies rather than the situation in the world at the time. This gloomy sense of...
