“The Mill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson is about a married couple that lives together but they live a life of misery. The poem was written in the 1920’s back when millers were a crucial factor in the country. However, long hours of pouring sweat and blood, they were soon replaced by machinery. The poem takes place in the miller’s house and also at the mill. The wife of the miller seemed to be broken throughout the whole poem. Perhaps she was heartbroken because her husband committed suicide, or she just might be miserable in general for the life she has been dealt. I believe her husband killed himself because his whole life was the mill. He had nothing else in the world except for the mill, and once that was gone he was very miserable. Line five of the poem shows devastation in the old man’s heart by saying, “There are no millers anymore.” The man felt like he had nothing else to live for except for the mill, and once he was replaced he decided to end his life. The wife goes to the mill and finds that her husband has hung himself. Perhaps the man thought that it would be right for him to go in a place that he loved so much, rather than just rotting away at his house.
In the beginning of the poem I didn’t see the wife as one who would commit suicide, but once she saw her husband that way I think she felt obligated to do the same. She didn’t want to continue her already miserable life, especially without her husband in it. In lines nine through twelve of the poem it talks about how she could smell her husband as soon as she arrived at the mill. The wife committed suicide by jumping into the water and drowning herself. The poem explains it as, “Black water, smooth above the weir like starry velvet in the night, though ruffled once would soon appear the same as ever to the sight.” This is of course the last few lines of the poem when she jumps in the water. It talks about the “ruffled” water, which explains the waves from her hitting the water, but then soon after it would have been like nothing happened because the water would settle again.
My comments about this poem are that I thought it was kind of interesting. It forced me to think outside the box a little bit and have to read it a few times to finally understand what had happened. I liked the way the author explained certain things and gave hints in the beginning to try and figure out what the poem was about. For example, he used words like “black”, “cold”, and “dead,” which explained the rough time the couple was going through. I also liked the way the author described the water at the end of the poem. It really made me visualize a smooth and still body of water sitting there, but also made me visualize what it would be like if a person had jumped into it. All in all, good poem.
