Reading through Hemans, there emerges a thread of the universal sorrow experienced by women. This sorrow may manifest in the physical loss of a husband, as for the widow of Crescentius; an emotional loss, as with the wife of Asdrubal's tragic realization of her husband's cowardice and selfish treason; or the inevitable loss of youth and subsequent change in familial relations that comes with leaving the parents' house and entering the home of a husband, to raise one's own children. Hemans uses a very lyrical style, interwoven with imagery of the natural beauty of these women's homelands that starkly contrasts with the pain each is feeling with ther loss, helping the reading to understand the poignancy of each of their respective tragedies. I found "The Wife of Asdrubal" to be the most disturbing and devastating. Upon realizing that Asdrubal has cowardly turned traitor to his country, surrendering to save his own life and sacrificing the lives of his people, wife, and children, his wife draws strength from this pain, doing what her husband could not and dying nobly rather than suffering the shame of losing her country. Her extreme decision to commit infanticide along with her own suicide, in order to ensure her husband's eternal pain and suffering such as he has caused her with his betrayal, seems extreme, but at the same time noble; she knows she must perish, and she bravely chooses to make a statement in so doing and exert her principles.
I think Hemans also plays on the sorrow that the reader feels for the wife. In the poem, the husband is the weak, cowardly traitor, and the wife is the strong, loyal hero -- obviously a reversing of roles and stereotypes. I know that as a reader, I felt sorrow for the wife because because despite her masculine characterization, she lived her life under her less-worthy husband, the authority. Although she is represented as the more able leader in the poem, her gender prohibits her from being that person in society. I think Hemans is bringing up the idea that being male does not necessarily make one the better lead. Women need power and authority too.
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