"Lot's Wife" by Anna Akhmatova Critical Response

The poem "Lot's Wife" retells a story in the Bible about a man and his wife and family, all of whom must flee their disintegrating home town to escape God's wrath. However, when Akhmatova wrote her poem, instead of focusing on the plot, she paid special attention to Lot's wife. The wife's emotional state is examined, which enables readers to see the story in a different light. For example, we learn how much it pains Lot's wife to run from her town when "a wild grief in [his wife's] bosom cried, Look back, it is not too late for a last sight..." As the woman struggles with deciding whether to look back at her home or keep running, she is troubled as "her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain". Sadly, when the wife looks back, contradicting God's instructions, her body turns into salt and she is destroyed with the city. Finally, in the last stanza, Akhmatova prompts the reader to consider the significance of the wife's death when she writes, "Who would waste tears upon her? Is she not/ The least of our losses, this unhappy wife?/ Yet in my heart she will not be forgot/ Who, for a single glance, gave up her life." Thus, in questioning the woman's death, Akhmatova asks the reader whether the wife's actions were acceptable or reasonable. Although she disobeyed her husband and God by looking back at her home town, she still did so because she could not accept that she had to leave her life behind. Therefore, Akhmatova sympathizes with the wife, and says that she will never forgot her.