On the outside, the speaker in Amy Lowell’s “Patterns” acts the way Victorian However, on the inside, she expresses her emotions and what she truly feels. The speaker is confined to each “button, hook, and lace” of society’s values. When confronted with an emotional situation, she bottles her feelings and only confesses them to herself. The “patterns” serve as guidelines for the speaker’s life.The speaker is constantly bombarded by what Victorian society expects of her. Her “stiff, brocaded gown” serves as a stand to hold her up. Without it, she would crumble with emotion. She mustn’t show any form of feeling, so she feels as if there is “not a softness anywhere” about her. Confined by “whalebone and brocade,” the speaker continues to live up to the expectations society enforces upon her. While she remains “guarded from embrace” by her gown, she contains emotions that she knows she can’t express. Doing so would brand her improper.Once the speaker comes to terms with the bestowed values of society, she becomes overwhelmed with the news of her fiances demise. However, she does not express her depression or sadness. Instead she keeps her feelings hidden because she knows that behavior is expected of her. She even makes sure “that the messenger takes some refreshment” when the news is delivered to her. The only time the speaker confesses her feelings is when she is alone. She shows emotions such as passion when she fantasizes about her lover, who causes her to feel “aching, melting, unafraid.” She does this as she sits by herself “in the shade of a lime tree,” while her “passion wars against the stiff brocade.”Throughout the poem, “patterns” govern the speaker’s life. The path that she walks down at the start of the poem is a pattern. After he...
