"Two
Beds and A Coffee machine"
~~Surviving
The lyrics of the song "Two Beds & A Coffee Machine," show the
deepest feeling of a woman, who is a victim under the violence in marriage.
The struggling process of the woman reveals that the woman as a wife wants
to break away from the family violence many times. However,
thinking of her innocent children and the financial problems they will
encounter in the future, she decides to go back home to play a good role
of a mother. Major images and ideas shown in the lyrics
A.Violence
and frustration in marriage:
Images that imply
the gloomy atmosphere in the family are broken glass and furniture, which
show the house is strongly damaged after family violence. The
hidden bruise shows the woman's attempts to tolerate the violent
actions. And the ditches and the stop signs are set in contrast
to the highway: a marriage should go as flat as a highway, while the woman
faces lots of ditches and stop signs, which imply the frustrations in her
marriage. As for the screaming, nightmare and black of night,
they all give people the feeling of darkness and violence, which should
not appear in a happy marriage.
B.Inner
struggles of the woman:
The woman's feelings are moving back and
forth. She wants to break away the tempest circle because she
almost can't bear the hurtful things in her life. The title
of the song, "two beds and a coffee house" is a specific phrase the writer
uses to express the woman's lonely and helpless feelings in the hotel
struggling between the destruction and the future life. Bed
is always the place for people to take a complete rest, and coffee can
offer people a warm and relax feeling. The woman drives away
home and finds out a hotel with two beds and a coffee machine, which is
a place for her to take a temporary rest without the fears of the violence.
But, if the woman leaves the home with her children, she may face serious
financial problems in the future because only two beds and a coffee machine
in a hotel room are too few to satisfy them. So the woman finally
realizes that there are other groceries they need than coffee and a lot
of other activities to do at "home" than sleeping. Thus, "she
knows she will have to go home."
C.Hope
for the woman to live on:
Though the woman suffers a lot from her husband,
the children know nothing about the unhappiness of their mother.
They still sleep peacefully "in the backseat." And their sweet
dreams are "full of candy and new toys" which are again the contrasts to
the mother's bitter feeling. We can see that it is her children
who support her to survive in the bad environment. Although
she doesn't want to tolerate the painful violence anymore, she sacrifices
for her children in order to see their smiles. Besides, the
"fortress" is "built to last," she must give her beloved children a complete
home, not a broken one. So, thinking of her children, she finally
decided to drive back home on the lonely highway.
D.Cycle
pain in marriage violence:
The woman is thus in a repetitive trip back and
forth between home and different highway motels, which is revealed through
repeating the word "another." The words following "another,"
”are step, bruise, alibi, ditch, stop sign, cheap hotel and lonely highway."
The word "another" here gives us the idea that the violence, the breaking
away and the going back home have happened several times. Everything
is uncertain and unstable to the woman and it seems that she can't find
a specific, clear way to go. Again, the use of this word successfully
builds the woman's helpless feeling and the persistent image in the readers'
minds.
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