Work Text:
It’s a very tragic story.
She was beautiful and selfless and utterly, deeply in love.
We love that. We all love the raw emotion of the landlord’s daughter, painted,
Stark,
Bright,
Down her romantic breast painted red on stark
white.
She lived beautiful, and she died beautiful.
She was made that way. Written by a man, the very art of the piece,
Bess
Is dedicated to a man
Betrayed by a man
Tied up and gagged as bait by men.
With their jeers and laughs ringing in her lovely ebony locked head,
The phallic press of the gun
And the drunken kiss of strangers on her neck
She was doomed from birth,
From her first line on the page
Where she was identified as the landlord’s daughter,
The title of the poem is misleading.
Why is her lover faceless
When we know the precise color of Bess’ eyes?
I have read adaptation after adaptation of this
And the mysterious thief’s face is always hidden in his tipped French cap
We are given descriptions of his clothes
His materialistic saunter
We aren’t given his wicked eyes or Cupid bow’s mouth.
We have to know that Bess is beautiful.
We are reminded of her breasts no less than three times in almost as many stanzas
And her entire story revolves around the actions of men around her
Bess’ sacrifice is seen as making her a heroine.
That the sacrifice of her life was all for her nameless, faceless, One True Love.
But I wonder
After the author had penned her identity as the landlord’s daughter,
After her criminal lover had made her wait
After a lusty and selfish teenage boy had let his lips slip
After the soldiers had groped and gagged her red lips shut
I wonder if she got a little tired.
I wonder if she was tired of being pulled on ropes and worked over by the hands of men
(Yes, even the man she loved)
That she moved her own finger
To end the story the way she wanted to.
I wonder if she tipped her chin up to the moon and laughed through her gag. Silly, silly author. It was never about the highwayman at all.
Yes, it’s a very tragic story.
She was doomed,
But she was doomed how she pleased.