Response to _To My Dear and Loving Husband_ by Anne Bradstreet

       Immediately upon reading the title of this poem and initially reading the poem once through, I at first got the feeling this was a really sappy romantic poem that is only meant for a loving and devoted wife to serenade her husband. Upon completing a TP-CASTT organizer, I started feeling slightly different about one possible overall meaning to this poem. I got the sense that although she is completely passionate about her love of her husband, I think it's more about the power she feels as a result of loving him or supposedly loving him so greatly. I think this speaker feels more proud of herself for self proclaiming her love to be much better and greater than that of the love that any other woman could have for her man especially when the speaker said, "Compare with me, ye women, if you can." It's almost as if she is daring other women to make a statement disclaiming that so she can have more of a reason to continue writing this letter to her husband. Although the title clearly suggests that this poem is a letter from the speaker to her husband, I get the sensation that the speaker wants to show off, wants to have other women read that letter in order to gain some sort of power of them. Maybe during the time and setting that this poem is set in, women were more inferior to men so the only way to get power was to obtain it over other women. Throughout the entirety of the poem, the speaker tries to convince the audience reading whole-heartedly that she thinks that the value of her love of her husband is far greater than the physical value of money, but I think the author created this speaker in order to show the audience how love is a powerful emotion that can be used and abused for all the wrong reasons. Overall, I think it is demonstrated that women are motivated to love their husbands passionately in order to gain power over other women while living in a "man's world".