What is the theme for the poem Barbra Allan?

Answer 1

Death

Sudden death was much more common in the days when this poem was a popular song than it is today. Medical science had not identified virus or bacteria and had little knowledge of how the body fights disease. To an audience at that time, it would not have seemed at all unusual that a nobleman such as Sir John Graeme could be healthy one day and then be lying near death the next. This poem does not specify whether Sir John knew of his impending death when he sent his man to fetch Barbara Allan, but whether he knew how serious his condition was or not, this information is clearly held back from the reader. At first, there is no clear indication that he actually is dying: his illness is first mentioned by Barbara Allan, who bases her diagnosis on her first glance at him. Throughout stanzas 3 to 5, there is no independent information to let readers know whether Sir John's condition is an actual illness or if his unrequited love for Barbara Allan is making him appear physically ill. Even after Sir John's death in stanza 6, Barbara Allan behaves as if they are still engaged in clever banter, saying good-bye as if she were merely leaving for another appointment. The significance of death is played down. However, once the tolling of the dead-bell forces Barbara Allan to accept the reality of Sir John's death, the shock she suffers brings her death just as swiftly as his appeared. While his fatal illness showed up suddenly in the poem because some information was held back (the poem's narrator gave no indication of his fragile condition before Barbara Allan arrived to see him), her death is not just told with suddenness, it is sudden. In death, Sir John and Barbara Allan are finally happy with each other and able to achieve a peace in their relationship that they could not agree to in life.

Growth and Development

Barbara Allan matures during the course of this poem. Throughout the first seven stanzas, she treats Sir John Graeme's love for her, and then his death, lightly. More serious to her than either of these is the insult that she felt when she thought that Sir John was ignoring her at the tavern. Even seeing him die before her eyes does not shake her lighthearted attitude. It is not until she is on her way home and hears the dead-bell ringing that she suddenly becomes aware of the seriousness of death. In that one instant, Barbara Allan realizes the cold, impersonal nature of the world, which carries out the course of life and death regardless of whether she feels it is right or not. This realization of death's inevitability is so shocking to Barbara Allan that it kills her. Still, when the shock is over, she comes away having learned something from it. It is only after they are both dead that she is prepared to enter into a continuing relationship with Sir John. After their deaths, they both retain the same basic personalities that they had in life. Sir John is represented by the rose, the symbol of love (because he was lovesick for Barbara Allan), and she is represented by the thorny briar, because she was harsh and untouchable in life. Nonetheless, they end up bound together in a knot. In life, Barbara Allan could not accept her love for Sir John, but having lost him, she learns to value his love. By poem's end, she has grown into a person who can bond with another while retaining her rough personality.

Love and Passion

The nature of the romance between Barbara Allan and Sir John Graeme is left open to interpretation, which may account for the poem's enduring popularity throughout different cultures for nearly four centuries. On the surface, it seems to be a one-sided affair. Barbara Allan appears to be cruel to Sir John, withholding the love that he wants so desperately, even as he is drawing his final breaths. It would be easy to be angry at Barbara Allan for being so self-centered and fickle, because she places so much importance on the insult she believes she suffered when he stayed at the tavern with his friends and ignored her. To her, this insult seems more important than Sir John's life. Barbara Allan only seems more superficial and unsympathetic when it is later revealed that she actually did love him - so much so, that losing him quickly kills her. Once it is clear that she loved him as much as he loved her, her treatment of him on him deathbed becomes more than cruel, but mean to a point of self-destruction. There is another way to look at their relationship, though. It could be that Barbara Allan does not really slight Sir John at all, that her behavior at his bedside is part of their mutual mating ritual. She may be acting properly within the rules of their particular relationship. One indication of this is their union after death, symbolized by the rose and brier: if Sir John felt mistreated in life, it obviously did not hurt his feelings too much to spend eternity bound to her. His dialog in the fourth stanza can be read as his way of flirting, of making light of his serious illness by using it as an opportunity to flatter her, saying that he is sick for Barbara Allan. Her chilly rebuff of him in stanza 5 would not then be a case of mocking the ill, but of returning lighthearted banter with the same. If this is the case, their relationship is quite evenly balanced, a case of opposites - like the rose and brier - attracting, and not the tragedy that it might at first seem.