What is the point of view in the poem the Highwayman?

Answer 1

This poem is told from the point of view of an unknown speaker. The speaker is like a storyteller, who creates a mysterious mood and attempts to pull the reader into the romanticism of the highwayman character and his lover.

Answer 2

In his autobiography, the author of The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes, states that the poem was suggested when the sound of the wind in the pines gave him the idea.

It is set during the American Revolutionary war when the British army, known by the colonists as 'redcoats' were occupying the area and trying to stamp out rebellion against the king. The poem tells a story of a young couple; Bess, the daughter of an inn-keeper and a highway man, or robber.

Money was very difficult to come by during the Revolutionary war, and highway robbery was not uncommon. His occupation could be interpreted as a hint that he was a Patriot, stealing from the Torys and King George's Men as a way of fighting for American Independence. The detail of his "French-cocked hat" could reinforce this interpretation as the French were allies of the American colonists, providing them with supplies and fighting with them against the British. Because he says he will "come for her," it could also be interpreted that the money he steals will be used for the both of them to get married.

Because he is an outlaw, they meet in secret by moonlight. Another man who works for the inn, Tim, overhears the Highwayman telling Bess he will come for her at the latest by the moonlight of the next night. Because Tim is also in love with her, or at least with her beauty, he tips off the Redcoats and they try to ambush the Highwayman at the inn.

They tie up and gag Bess and aim a musket at her so she won't try or be able to warn the Highwayman when he comes. After hours of working at the ropes binding her, she is able to get one finger on the trigger of the musket. When she hears his horse getting close, she pulls the trigger so the sound of the shot will warn the Highwayman of the Redcoats hiding and waiting to kill him. This allows him to get away, although it unfortunately comes at the price of Bess sacrificing her life in the hopes of rescuing the life of the man she loves. He rides away safely, unaware that she was hurt or killed. Then next morning he learns of her sacrifice and death, and in his grief rides back at the Redcoats. They shoot him and he dies without doing them any harm.

The last two stanzas tell of the legends that say the ghosts of the Highwayman and Bess still see each other at the inn on moonlit nights, their love living on eternally after their death as symbolized by the love-knots she's tied in her hair. That love brought them to their deaths but it also reunited them afterward for eternity.

There are ominous descriptions throughout the poem, such as the wind being a "torrent of darkness" and the "Ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas" (galleon here refers to a kind of ship). This is all foreboding imagery that foreshadow the tragic end. A 'moral' or 'message' to the poem could be interpreted as greed, jealousy and vengeance lead to downfall and destruction, similar to the story of Rome and Juliet. It could be interpreted many different ways however.

Answer 3

Voltaire,Spencer,Haeckel,Darwin,and Spinozian Goethe

Answer 4

The Highwayman - poem - was created in 1906.

Answer 5

third person

Answer 6

No, 1906.