"Can someone make my simple wish come true? Is it you?" (Cope, 973).
The villanelle form in which Wendy Cope chose to write "Lonely Hearts" helps create a lonely and empty tone. Additionally, the questions asked at the end of each tercet suggest the search for the person is ongoing. The search for "the one" has resulted in failure various times for these people. The villanelle form allowed Cope to construct the poem in a way so that it appeared like advertisements in a newspaper. There is something ironic in the fact that these people are looking for the one but the one has to meet certain requirements. The ironic aspect of this is that nearly every story ever told about love or friendship gets its happy ending when one person stops forcing others to meet their requirements and starts working on bettering themselves and making themselves more worthy of a great love. This creates this sense that these requests/desperations will result in failure which puts the reader in a melancholy state knowing these wishes will most likely not be fulfilled. At first, I wondered whether or not the location of North London held much significance. The connection it appears is the common association of London with rain and rain with loneliness.
The villanelle form in which Wendy Cope chose to write "Lonely Hearts" helps create a lonely and empty tone. Additionally, the questions asked at the end of each tercet suggest the search for the person is ongoing. The search for "the one" has resulted in failure various times for these people. The villanelle form allowed Cope to construct the poem in a way so that it appeared like advertisements in a newspaper. There is something ironic in the fact that these people are looking for the one but the one has to meet certain requirements. The ironic aspect of this is that nearly every story ever told about love or friendship gets its happy ending when one person stops forcing others to meet their requirements and starts working on bettering themselves and making themselves more worthy of a great love. This creates this sense that these requests/desperations will result in failure which puts the reader in a melancholy state knowing these wishes will most likely not be fulfilled. At first, I wondered whether or not the location of North London held much significance. The connection it appears is the common association of London with rain and rain with loneliness.
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