
In Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room, William Wordsworth uses figurative language to contribute to the theme of confinement. Specifically, he uses metaphors throughout the piece to describe the “narrow room”. Wordsworth sets up his poem and his theme starting with the title which suggests he is going to elaborate on this said room and touch upon confinement. Each stanza describes a different type of confinement or group that is being confined through a metaphor. Wordsworth is then able to use his personal testimony to describe what confinement is to him. 

Wordsworth starts the poem off by describing certain people and their relationships to confinement. He uses the metaphor of nuns sitting in their convent’s rooms. By using the word narrow, the room feels small and gives a negative connotation to something that is positive. In the second stanza it says, “And hermits are contended with their cells;” (line2). In this line, Wordsworth is describing a group of people who live in solitude. He uses the word cell to emphasize his assertions on confinement. By doing so, the reader can get a sense of the theme now just from the first two lines that self-imprisonment is not what Wordsworth has in mind for people. In line three is it important to notice the word citadel which enhances the metaphor used. Citadels can be described as fortress’ protecting something or hiding something important. Wordsworth ties students and citadels together when he describes the aspect of solitary because he views students as almost imprisoned to school. His next metaphor describing maids at their wheels and weavers at their looms, progresses this poem because it describes a group of people who have steady jobs. This last example about certain groups elaborates on his topic of confinement because Wordsworth is generalizing that everyone has a job in life whether it be school or work. He is able to relate each group with a certain area of work through metaphors to define confinement. 

This poem then shifts from using metaphors to describe humans and their tasks in life to comparing nature and their acquired tasks. Wordsworth says, “bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells” (lines 5-6). His use of metaphors in these lines suggest a lighter tone describing hills in England and flowers. These metaphors suggest that there is a turn in this poem and these serve as a transitional moment. He ties in bees to this poem to show that even they have tedious tasks to complete yet they can still be content. These elements relate to the larger picture of this poem because Wordsworth is showing the reader that although there are certain tedious tasks we have to complete; they may not all be as bad as one thinks. Also, these metaphors contribute to his work as a whole because they indirectly define confinement and set up Wordsworth’s assertions at the end of his poem. 

Wordsworth concludes the poem by focusing all his attention on the fact that jobs and tasks in life may be demanding and hard but it is important to be content and make the best of a bad situation. The metaphors he uses in this section of his poem reflect more of his personal statements. In the first part of the poem he describes jobs as being prison-like or solitary. In the last few lines of the poem he then presents a counter argument with personal testimony to tie his poem together. He says, “Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me…Should find brief solace there, as I have found” (lines 9 & 14). The metaphors presented here show that he does not believe that confinement in life is a bad thing and these lines wrap up his assertions as a whole using personal statement. Wordsworth notes that he found peace in writing the sonnet in the way that he did for it did not allow for too much freedom in his writing style. This contributes to his assertions about confinement because he says that he found peace while experiencing confinement in the task he was completing. He concludes by stating that while writing this poem his constraints did not set him back and he was able to be content. This element of Wordsworth personal opinion contributes to the poem as a whole because it ties all the previous metaphors together showing the positive outcome as previously described in a negative way. 

Wordsworth’s many metaphors contribute to his theme as a whole because each one emphasizes his thoughts on not living in confinement. He sets up his poem in a manner that gives examples of humans living in confinement and then he transitions to describe that the ways these people are living and the jobs they are doing are not as bad as they think they are. In each metaphor Wordsworth uses descriptive language that is relevant to describing confinement. In each metaphor, confinement is used similarly but to show confinement on a larger scale he uses different groups as examples. These metaphors set the tone for the poem and show the relationship between the element and the theme. 