06/14/2012 YASH PANCHAL Love and Seduction “My Last Duchess” by Browning and “To His Coy Mistress” by Marvell are examples of two men searching for the right words to express their emotions towards a woman. The speakers in both poems are talking about love and seduction. Even though they both are written in two different centuries, both pieces have remarkable similarities as well as some of the common expected differences. “To His Coy Mistress” values women and their love they give, while “My Last Duchess” totally humiliates the role of women in society. “My Last Duchess" and "To His Coy Mistress" shows the act of the men in these two poems.
Rubbish at Adultery The title of the poem “Rubbish at Adultery” written by Sophie Hannah sets a straight forward tone that person involved in the adultery is ‘rubbish’ in his act. Hannah uses manifold structure, tone and language to paint humorous picture of an unfaithful relationship. The poem commences with the persona being irritated by the man who has come to have physical relationship with her. ‘Must I give up another night,’ suggests although they made several attempts earlier to have affair, nevertheless, the man has not extended his co-operation and wanted her to listen to his grievances every time they met. This idea is reinforced through the alliterated words ‘whinge and wine’.
Emily instantly fell in love. She even bought him a silver toilet set with his initials on it to almost buy his love, but as time passed they had still not married. Once Emily found out that Homer was not the marrying type, she went out and killed him so he would always belong to her, “The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him” (Faulkner) as the narrator states. Emily had acted irrationally in order to keep what she had always desired. On the other hand, in The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by, Porter, Granny Weatherall had also been rejected by her lover, George.
Rabbit enjoys the sexual experience because it is what makes him feel closest to that person. In a sense, sex for Rabbit, is a drug, and having kicked the habit of cigarettes early in the novel only intensifies his cravings for it. It seems even, at times, that sex might be what he is actually running to and because of his disintegrating relationship with Janice, he must find that feeling of comfort that he needs with someone else. Eventually, after he finds his way home, he is hit with the truth that his wife Janice has killed their newborn baby in a drunken stupor. This only pushes Rabbit away from his old life more, and when he goes off on Janice for killing the baby he is practically pulled to run by his embarrassment.
Speaking to the Friar Lawrence of the suggestion to use dead/undead poison, Juliet replies, “Give me, give me! O tell me not of fear”(IV.iv.121) One can see that Juliet is a quick, and not so thought out thinker when she is desperate. “What if it be a poison which the friar/subtly hath minister’d to have me dead/Lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured/Because he married me before to Romeo?/I fear it is, and yet me thinks it should not?”(IV.iii.24-28) Momentarily one can see that Juliet does think of consequences, but she always lets herself believe that everything is for the best. She easily convinces herself that it all will work out in the end. Thought when things do not work out and Juliet finds Romeo dead, she abruptly makes the decision to kill herself.
This story of a child’s corrupt choices and the heart wrenching emotions a mother feels, pulls the audience into their song. The song then shifts to a common situation of a young man having unprotected sex and eventually dies of HIV. TLC has the listener relating to a young man by arousing everyone’s need to be loved; the lyric is, “little precious has a natural obsession for temptation but he just can't see. She gives him loving that his body can't handle but all he can say is, baby it's good to me” (Waterfalls Lyrics). They stir the emotions of the listener in order to emphasis the need for safe sex.
Marvell’s use of the word “coy” to describe the young lady shows her as bashful, hidden, and ‘a hard-to-get’ woman, in effect showing that she is still a virgin. And as a result, her response throughout the poem to his attempts to take her virginity stem from that fact. In the first stanza, from “Had we but world enough…Nor would I love at lower rate,” Marvell employs a flattering tone to convince the lady to have sex with him. He begins his attempts by comparing her to the Ganges River while himself to the Humber River. Any informed reader would know that the Ganges River in northern India was named after the very beautiful Indian goddess Ganga, and that the Humber was a river that flowed through Marvell’s hometown in England suggesting that this poem possible resembled a real life experience for Marvell.
Time is of the essence: break down of “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell The poem, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, is considered a carpe diem (meaning seize the day) kind of poem. The author really gets into the character of a man trying in vain to convince a young lady to engage in a sexual relationship with him. His motivation appears to be animal like desire rather than true love. The man in the poem is a very passionate guy.. The persuasion used in this poem is very aggressive with clear intentions.
The poet tends to use informal diction throughout the poem which demonstrates how the speaker seems to still be in that childish stage and is not admitting to his mistake. He refers to his “butterfingered way…of asking [her if she would marry him]”, and the word choice shows that he is reminiscing and inserting himself in that situation again. The word “butterfingered” is not only childish, but butter is used to soothe pain from burns, so it connects with the incident he described. The poet informs the readers that love is difficult to express, and this is perceptible because the poet has an irrational way of expressing his emotions to the girl he loves. He uses specific words that have buried meanings in them.
Harding says this to himself mocking the voice of a god who finds joy in the pain and sorrow of others. This also says a lot about his view of religion, Harding sees gods as malevolent beings that will “profit” off of his loss. He has little respect for whatever god he is addressing because the word “god isn’t capitalized anywhere in the poem. Harding blames his problems on the malevolence of the gods by saying “Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,/Steeled any the sense of ire unmerited;/ Half-erased in that a Powerfuller than I/Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.” (Hardy ll. 5-9).