To His Coy Mistress - A Feminist Perspective

700 Words2 Pages

A Feminist Perspective of To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell, a 17-century poetry writer, focuses on a subject that still baffles the readers' minds today, sex. Marvell shows a world where women are seduced. Women and men have focused on the issue of sex for centuries. The most ironic thing that reader should notice while reading this poem is that even though they are in two different time settings, the same persuasions are used as an argument in Marvell's time as well as the present. Although he uses love and time as reasons why should she have sex with him his main focus his her body. The Marble Vault is a part of her body, the female genital. Marvell shows the patriotic attitude that it is okay to make this argument to a woman. In other words it is ok for a male to be aggressive and antagonizing towards a female.

The young lady in "To His Coy Mistress" is definitely not to be taken for a mere fool because he would not have gone to great lengths to convince her to give her body to him. His word to describe the young lady as coy shows her response to his question. The speaker seems to be desperate while he attempts to win her over. His mood began to change in the poem from calm to impatient just by the use of his words. By the end he even contradicts himself. In the beginning he states:

"Of humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversation of the Jews

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster then empires and more slow;...

... middle of paper ...

...ove) " My echoing song; thenworms shall try that long perserved virginity/ And your qaint honer turned to dust/And into ashes all my lust". He is talking about rough sex. He wants to be involved with her physically instead of love which is lust thus stated in the last qoute.. Finally we come to the concluding point where feminists would call this guy a creep. Pleasure is the speaker's main concern. The body is definitely the speaker focus. He makes references to parts of her body. He talks about her eyes, her forehead, her breasts, the rest and every part.

In conclusion "To His Coy Mistress" contains a sexual theme. He uses the "marble vault" and points towards death to scare and win the young lady over. In the 21st Century men use the same tactics as well. This shows that the people were not much different from today.

Show More
Related

  • The Feminist Scarlet Letter

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter can easily be seen as an early feminist piece of work. Nathaniel Hawthorne created a story that exemplifies Hester as a strong female character living with her choices, whether they were good or bad, and also as the protagonist. He also presents the daughter of Hester, Pearl, as an intelligent female, especially for her age. He goes on to prove man as imperfect through both the characters of Dimmesdale and of Chillingworth. With the situation that all the characters face, Hawthorne establishes the female as the triumphant one, accomplishing something that, during Nathaniel Hawthorne’s time, authors did not attempt.

    Read More

  • Michael Jordan Accomplishments

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    Michael Jordan is a retired, extremely successful basketball player who played in the large, National Basketball Association. He was born on February 17, 1963 and his nationality is American. Michael Jordan is a big as most average shooting guards in the NBA at 6 feet 6 inches and his weight is listed at 216 lb. For many people, Michael Jordan is considered the best basketball player to live on the planet. For his whole career, he only played for two different franchises, the successful Chicago Bulls, and the improving Washington Wizards. This amazing player had a couple of large breaks in his career, he retired three times in all, but the first two time he had retired from the league, he returned to the NBA in nearly 3 years each time. After he retired, he played baseball in the MLB, but figured that he was meant for basketball then eventually returned to the NBA. He had astonishing stats in the regular season of the NBA and the playoffs. Michael Jordan is one of the greats because of several different statistics and accomplishments that prove his brilliance.

    Read More

  • michael jordan

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jordan's father, James, was killed in a robbery in 1993. This devastating event in Michael's life was partially responsible for him leaving the NBA. He claimed that basketball held no more challenges for him. He turned to Baseball for a challenge where he played in the White Sox organization. He was quick, and could play defense, but he just couldn't do enough with the bat. His return to basketball came on March 19, 1995 against Indiana. The Bulls had retired Jordan's number 23 on November 11, 1994.

    Read More

  • Michael Jordan An Influential Man

    580 Words  | 2 Pages

    “If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has them, but obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb, go through, or work around it.” (Michael Jordan) Michael Jordan is definitely an influential person because of his impact on basketball, his impact on youth through his name brand, and through the support of charities.

    Read More

  • micheal jordan

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Jeffery Jordan was born on February 17, 1963 in the city of Brooklyn, New York. Michael was not always the greatest player on the court; he had to work for every bit of it. After moving from Brooklyn to Wilmington, North Carolina MJ decided to go out for the high school sophomore basketball team, he was cut. However three years later he definitely showed his high school coach that he could play. Michael played his freshman of college for the University of North Carolina; he also hit the game winning shot in the NCAA Championship game that year. After two more years at North Carolina Michael entered the NBA draft. He was chosen third overall in the first round by the Chicago Bulls. MJ’s first year with the Bulls was spectacular, he wan the rookie of the year award, averaging 28.2 points per game. His second year in the NBA was not so great; he was benched due to a foot injury. However he did come back to play a few games towards the end of the season, one in which he scored sixty-three points. With this feet, he ho...

    Read More

  • What Is The Wooden Award?

    2121 Words  | 5 Pages

    He was about to live the dream that so many players hope for. This was a man who was cut from his high school team, but that didn’t stop him from being the third overall pick in 1984, it didn’t stop him from winning two gold medals in the Olympics, and it surely didn’t stop him from changing the game so much. Jordan would go one to play 13 remarkable seasons; he would lead the Chicago Bulls to their first NBA championships. Along with that win, he also won five other championships. MJ was an overall great player, when teams shut down his drives, he would shoot. When they shut the shots down, he would drive. Jordan’s biggest weapon could have been his well-rounded personality, but truly, it was his ability to adapt and improve. He is one of 50 greatest players of all time, in the basketball hall of fame, and won the NBA MVP title twice (Jordan Bio).His style, his skills, his swagger; it is what captivated the crowd and what made him so popular. When he shot the ball, glimpse of his tongue was visible to all, young players today do this, but it was not very common until after he started playing (Jordan Bio). He also pioneered longer shorts and a baldhead. He created so many trends that made him unique. More and more people would come to watch Jordan play, even if they were not Chicago’s fans, they were his fans. He also mesmerized other stars. Magic Johnson can be quoted saying, "There 's Michael Jordan and then there is the

    Read More

  • Sexuality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

    5051 Words  | 11 Pages

    However, Gawain's journey away from Camelot and back is framed by references, in the first and last stanzas, to the journeys into exile of Aeneas and of Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain, that complicate this apparent opposition. As this paper will argue, this framework complicates the poem's presentation of gender and sexuality. Rather than a clear opposition between, say, marital sexuality and everything else, we find a situation in which potentially adulterous acts and kisses among men are vested with varied--and shifting--values. The poem uses references to the (imagined) British past to complicate any simple reading of the tale it tells in terms of sexual morality or transgression.1

    Read More

  • A Brief Biography of Michael Jordan

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Jordan, considered one of the greatest to every play the game of basketball, was born in Brooklyn in 1963 and raised in North Carolina. As a senior in high school he was selected to the McDonald’s All-American Team, and then later accepted a scholarship to play for the University of North Carolina. After three seasons of college ball in which he averaged almost 18 points and 5 rebounds a game. He was selected 3rd overall in the 1984 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls after Hakeem Olajuwon (a hall of fame center with the Houston Rockets) and Sam Bowie (considered a major bust by the Portland Trail Blazers).

    Read More

  • Exploring Misogyny: Societal Rules and Female Freedom

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    She tells the girl to “walk like a lady” (320), “hem a dress when you see the hem coming down”, and “behave in front of boys you don’t know very well” (321), so as not to “become the slut you are so bent on becoming” (320). The repetition of the word “slut” and the multitude of rules that must be obeyed so as not to be perceived as such, indicates that the suppression of sexual desire is a particularly important aspect of being a proper woman in a patriarchal society. The young girl in this poem must deny her sexual desires, a quality intrinsic to human nature, or she will be reprimanded for being a loose woman. These restrictions do not allow her to experience the freedom that her male counterparts

    Read More

  • Comparison of Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.

    Read More

  • Michael Jordan Analysis

    1497 Words  | 3 Pages

    Michael Jordan, portrayed by Jim Naughton in the biography Taking To The Air: The Rise of Michael Jordan, is well regarded as not only the greatest basketball player of all time but also the face of a generation. During the mid to late 1980s NBA basketball was simply treading water. As a result of the lack of a marketable superstar, the NBA was losing popularity to the National Football League and Major League Baseball. Following Jordan’s emergence, the NBA’s attendance rose dramatically and it’s worldwide popularity skyrocketed. Michael Jordan returned basketball to its past popularity in the United States and revolutionized the way the world viewed the game of basketball. (Harriman) Michael Jordan’s life is succinctly depicted in Taking to The Air: The Rise of Michael Jordan. Jim Naughton focuses on Jordan’s influence on worldwide sports and culture as one of the most publicized and marketed athletes of all time. Naughton explains the circumstances in Jordan’s upbringing that gave him the ability to be a humungous star. This biography is examined by Kirkus Reviews. They describe Naughton’s biography: “Besides offering a solid chronological biography and record of Michael Jordan’s basketball career, here Naughton also gives an astute assessment of this superstar’s impact on society.” (“Taking to the Air”) The article in the Kirkus Review explains that this biography investigates Jordan’s impact on marketing while telling the story of his life. Like Kirkus Reviews, I too believe that Naughton’s work goes into great description about Jordan’s upbringing and later career while also examining his cultural impact. Throughout his life, Michael Jordan has topped the sports and entertainment worlds by becoming the greatest basketball pl...

    Read More

  • Comparing Tone in To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and To His Coy Mistress

    540 Words  | 2 Pages

    Comparing Tone in To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and To His Coy Mistress

    Read More

  • Vulnerability in the Works of John Donne

    2695 Words  | 6 Pages

    Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.

    Read More

  • The Ice Candy Man and Ayah's Relationship

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    Separated from such terrible accounts, we take in from both these books that the apparition trains convey the dead forms likewise convey sacks of ladies' breasts. The removal of bosoms of ladies is a standout amongst the most abhorrent wounds confronted by the ladies. Numerous ladies passed on attempting to keep away from sexual violation, protect their chastity, and ensure their rel...

    Read More

  • Analysis: The Duchess Battle With The Patriarchy

    1253 Words  | 3 Pages

    A woman of Renaissance-ian nature was stereotypically linked to the male dominant in her life. In contrast, the women that were powerful – and there were plenty – were subject to the idea that the female body was not strong enough to live up to a male counterpart. Rarely is the support of feminism and feminine sexuality seen in a time ruled and respected by powerful males. John Webster, however, presents a character of social prowess and sexual determination in his play The Duchess of Malfi, juxtaposing the social views of a woman with his characterization of the Duchess. The Duchess exudes autonomy in all of her many forms: as a ruler, widow, wife, and sister. Even in her death she

    Read More

More about To His Coy Mistress - A Feminist Perspective

Open Document