The Highwayman —Summary and Theme | English | one simple solution

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The Highwayman -By Alfred Noyes

Summary
The Highwayman is a Gothic romantic poem by Alfred Noyes. He wrote this poem in 1906. It is one of his most famous works. It is a work of Gothic romanticism. Gothic romanticism is a subgenre and romanticism and often deals with dark themes. Noyes creates this dark, ominous feeling in this poem through the words that he used to describe nature.
• He calls wind a torrent of darkness —which means a black river, rushing or swirling alone.
• He compares the moon to a ghostly galleon —which is a big old ship, riding in the sea of clouds.
• He compares the road to a ribbon of moonlight. On this windy night, it shines bright and white, a thin strip of light like a ribbon of moonlight.
• The road runs through a purple moor —that are open, grassy fields. They aren’t really purple. The night and the moonlight must be making them look that way.

The Highwayman is full of vivid imagery and a tragic love story. It is broken up into two sections. The first section sets up the story, and the second section tells its resolution. It is a narrative poem about a Highwayman or person who robs people on the highway, and the woman he loves.

In the first part the speaker details the account of highwayman who falls in love with Bess, a landlord's daughter. This part deals with the meeting of two lovers. The speaker describes how confidently the highwayman enters the town on a wintery night. His job is to rob people and this brings him to attention of the Redcoats. He is wearing a French cocked hat, a coat of claret velvet and breeches of brow doe-skin. He is armed with a pistol and a rapier. He meets his beloved, Bess in an old inn. She is plaiting a red love knot into her black long hair. The red love knot is the symbolic of her faithfulness. The Highwayman ask his beloved that he has to depart and that she will have to wait for him. He promises her to came back in the moonlight. Bess agrees, and lets down her hair. The highwayman kisses it and leaves. Meanwhile, Tim, an ostler is listening to their conversation, who is in love with that woman.

In the second part, Bess waits for the highwayman, but he doesn't return. Meanwhile, Bess is captured and tortured by the king's men. They tie her up with a musket under her breast. She tries to get her hands free. One day, she hears the sound of her lover's hourse. To warn him about the danger, she shoots herself in the heart and dies. The highwayman runs off to the west, unaware of the sacrifices of his beloved. When he hears of her death, he rides back to the town, where the king's men shoot him too. However, death could not separate the two lovers. Their love continues after their death as their ghosts meet in every winter night.

Theme
The theme of ‘The Highwayman’ includes love and death, violence, and courage.

Love and Death
The poem is a love story. It tells of the love of the highwayman, the landlord’s daughter, and her faithfulness. While she waits for the highwayman, she is “plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.” This love knot is symbolic of her faithfulness. The Highwayman’s loyalty and love are portrayed through his words, “I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!”
Death is associated with love in this poem. Just like Romeo and Juliet's love ended in mutual suicide, so did the lovers in this poem. The woman's suicide was committed to warn the highwayman, while the highwayman's suicide was an attempt to join his love in death.

Violence
The death that comes about in this poem is all due to acts of violence. The threat of violence is there almost from the beginning, both the characters died in the pool of their own blood. The highwayman’s job is to rob people, a violent act in and of itself. This brings him to the attention of the Redcoats. The woman, Bess is caught in this web of violence, and the only way she knows how to save the highwayman is to cause violence to herself and end her own life.

Courage
First there is the courage of the highwayman, who has to be brave to do his job. Whether or not that’s the right kind of bravery is another question. Then there is Bess and her bravery, her sacrifice, as she tries to protect her lover.