What is the purpose of Alfred Noyes' poem, "The Highwayman"?
The narrative poem, “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes, is a story about love, murder, sacrifice, and heartbreak. Noyes’ purpose in writing the poem is to simply tell a story about England and the love between the highwayman, a criminal who robs people as they travel the roads, and the innkeeper’s daughter, Bess. It is considered one of the best narrative poems written because of its imagery and story.
A highwayman is in love with an innkeeper’s daughter who waits in her room each night for him to ride up to the inn and profess his love for her. He cannot reach the maiden’s hand on horseback, and so she lets down her long black hair for him to smell its sweet perfume. It is a forbidden love as the highwayman is a criminal. When King George’s soldiers find out about the nightly visits of the highwayman, they...
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plan a stake out to catch him. They tie up the maiden and place a musket at her breast, so if she tries to get free, she will shoot herself. To save her lover, the maiden pulls the trigger of the musket to warn the highwayman with a blast from the musket. He rides off saved for the moment only to be gunned down on the road by King George’s soldier.
Although published in 1906, “The Highwayman” is a narrative that dates back and mimics other poems of the Romantic period of literature in the 1800’s. The unfulfilled love and sad circumstances would have been very popular to the readers of the time period.
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What does "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes symbolize?
The thematic symbolism of "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes represents the actions of true love (whether wise love or not). A more subtle part of the thematic symbolism is the representation of the psychological sketches of both Bess and the Highwayman. The heroine, in love with a highway robber, finds a way to warn him that the militia has come for him and is lying in wait to kill him. Rather than see her love caught and killed, while the waiting red coats sleep, the heroine with the black eyes stands in the moonlight of the darkened window and turns one of the men's rifles upon herself. All the highwayman hears is a gunshot. All he sees is the form of an unknown woman dying in the window. He flees to safety but when he hears who died in the window, how and why, he gallops back for revenge on her beloved life. He is killed and through eternity he attempts without success to reunite with
the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.