Conjoined takes a bitter, condescending outlook on marriage through the use of metaphors. For example, Minty states that an accident is like "Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed to live, even make love, together for sixty years." The metaphor of the conjoined twins refers to the horrible mistake that people make of getting married. Conjoined twins are restricted in what they can do just as people who are married often times give in to the other's demands and ,as a result, sacrifice his/her own desires.. The union of marriage is seen as an unnatural, inhumane conjoinment. Minty further illustrates her bleak perspective on marriage by stating that, " to sever the muscle could free one but might kill the other." This means that trying to surgically unattach the twins could save one but potentially kill the other unfortunate one. Metaphorically, one spouse will always reap the benefit, while at the expense of the other who makes a sacrifice. Humans are so unique and varying that it is inevitable that they will have different wants and needs. Thus, married couples will always be fighting to defend their own wills and holding each other back from their dreams by "the skin that binds [them] together as [they] move heavy in this house."Minty compares the married couple, "the onion in [a] cupboard, actually two joined under one transparent skin: each half-round, then flat and deformed where it pressed and grew against the other." The marriage is the skin of the onion that holds the couple together , suppressing their freedoms.They are bound together oppressively, ultimately destroying one another. Furthermore, Conjoined discloses the idea that marriage is a failed institution.
A Valediction, on the other hand, uses figurative language in conveying the omnipotent power of love and marriage. For example, the author states that he and his wife, " our two souls therefore ,which are one." This metaphor is comparing the martial union of a husband and a wife to the joining of souls. The couple's love is so great that their marriage alters them from being two distinct individuals into a single union where their lives revolve around one another. They are connected beyond physical attraction by a soulful love of the others' inner being. Despite the fact,"[one spouse] must go , endure not yet a breach, but an expansion like gold to airy thinness beat." This simile compares the pliability of gold to the endurance of the couple's love. Love can withstand the tests of time, distance, and even death. Even when one dies just his/her body is gone but his/her spirit thrives in heaven; therefore, the relationship cannot be severed by obstacles. Being that love is unconquerable there need be " no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move..." from bends down the road in the journey of life. Evidently, A Valediction, reveres the limitless, depth of power that marriage can have.
The two poems drastically contrast one another in their viewpoints about marriage. The poem,Conjoined, illustrates negativity toward marriage, while the poem, A Valediction, conveys positivity toward the vast strength of the institution of marriage. In Conjoined, the author feels that marriage is a drudgery that is unfair to both partners in the union and should be extinct. The author of Conjoined, feels that love will die in the midst of a couple's 'sixty year' marriage. Opposingly, the author of A Valediction feels that love is immortal and even though it is abstract it cannot be destroyed by tangible forces.In this poem, love is sustained by the lovers emotional bond rather than physical attraction. While in Conjoined, physical prescence is not even enough to flourish or even make the marriage bearable.
The two poems convey contrasting attitudes toward the institution of marriage proven through their use of figurative. In Conjoined, marriage is seen as inhumane, while in Valediction marriage is viewed as being celestial. Furthermore, the two poems contrast as far as the east is from the west.
