Coming Through The Rye

When I read this poem I imagine a very thin, pale girl with dark brown hair in a white silk petticoat that has been slightly torn, with stains along the bottom. She is drenched from head to toe, and her mascara has been smudged. If you saw her, you wouldn’t know if it was from the rain or her tears. She has scars and bruises scattered across her pale skin. The sky is grey, and Jenny is running across a meadow that has tall blades of grass brushing against her arms, irritating her skin. I imagine her face to be triumphant and for once in her life confident about the direction she is going. Her story goes about like this in my head. When growing up she had to live life with guidelines given to her by her parents and by age 18 her parents set up an arranged marriage to a much older, financially supportive man. Her scars and bruises came from herself and the man that she was forced to spend the rest of her life with. But then, one day she meets a young man, her age, that paints another image of the world that she has never looked at before. She gains the courage to stand up for herself, because she has finally come to realize that society’s opinion of her doesn’t matter. She runs away from the man she’s married to, so she can spend the rest of her life with her lover that is waiting for her on the other side of the meadow. This idea I got from when I read verse three, “gin a body meet a body comin thro’ the glen, gin a body kiss a body, need the warld ken?” Petticoats are usually worn underneath a garment of fancy dresses and when it describes this girl Jenny just wearing a petticoat, it can symbolize that she has thrown away all the burdens. Jenny is now free.