"The Clown's Wife" is a description of the public and private life of a clown
and the contrasts between them. It begins with the public. On stage, the clown is a king on a
thronethough it is already implied that this is the reverse of his private persona: "On
stage, he's a different person." The last line of the stanza, "But at home you should
hear him moan," uses , assonance, andto mimic the sound of moaning.
The
figurative language ("a king on a throne") continues in the next stanza with "the
world on his shoulder." The singular "shoulder" makes him appear hunched and
unbalanced. Thethat the clown makes others laugh but is unhappy himself is compounded when his
wife has to perform the sort of tricks one would expect from a clown to try to cheer him up.
However, the final uneven(providing some closure and resolution through rhyme, though not
through scansion) suggests that her efforts are not altogether in vain.
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