Poetry


Vocabulary


peaceably: non-violently; avoiding confl ict. Kojak: American police drama from the 1970s. Queen Maeve: a legendary Irish heroine who ruled Connacht.


Overview


The poem is presented as a newspaper report with a striking headline. There is both drama and intrigue in the title, as we wonder what on earth could have led to a woman being jailed for breaking an appliance. We assume that it must either have been damage caused to someone else’s property or an act that either injured a person or made them feel threatened.


The poem opens with a husband’s testimony. He comes across as rather ridiculous as he tries to impress the judge by using words that he thinks a lawyer would use. For example, he describes himself as ‘peaceably’ watching a TV programme. This is not the sort of language he would be likely to use in his day-to-day life, so it makes him seem foolish.


The husband’s testimony states that his wife marched into the living room and said that if he didn’t turn off the television, she would ‘put her boot through the screen’. When he didn’t turn off the television, she made good on her promise.


The programme the husband and children were watching does not fi t in with the idea of peace. Kojak, the detective, shoots a woman who has the same name as the wife in the poem and then snarls a smart comment at the corpse. This is a dreadful image and presents us with a world in which women are violently oppressed. The American word ‘dame’ to describe the woman sits oddly with the name ‘Queen Maeve’, as she was a legendary Irish heroine who ruled Connacht. This line also shows us, therefore, how American culture can creep into our homes and our language and erode our culture and traditions.


It is at this moment that the Maeve in the poem reasserts her authority and power by taking off her boots and making good on her threat to smash the television set if it is not switched off.


The wife’s reason for smashing in the set is not explained at this point in the poem and we are inclined to see things from the husband’s point of view. After all, he was simply watching a programme when his wife – for no good reason that we can see – marched into the room and put her boots through the television screen.


The husband’s reaction is interesting. His fi rst priority is to see the end of the programme, so he brings the children to his mother’s house and they watch the end of it together there. He confi des in the judge in an unnecessary aside that his mother has ‘a fondness for Kojak’, which again makes him look like a slightly ridiculous fi gure. Why would the judge want to know this and what possible bearing can it have on the case?


Finally, we get a reason for the wife’s behaviour. When the husband arrives home, she has thrown out the remnants of the set and she tells him that she doesn’t see why television should dominate their lives to the extent that it has replaced spouses and parents. This is both


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Poetry


oetry


ANALYSE


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