What Is The Theme Of The Poem Cousin Kate

Cousin Kate is a poem about a young woman who is seduced by a Lord. He soon ensnares her and marries her cousin Kate instead, leaving behind a broken-hearted cottage maiden. The maiden is soon classed as a fallen woman and is treated like an outcast in society. She is bitter and jealous of her cousin but soon reveals that she has the one thing her cousin does not and desperately wants: a son and replacement to the Lord.

The poem begins by saying ‘I was a cottage maiden’. It is a simple beginning, talking in the past tense. She tells us she is lower class person.

It later says she is ‘Hardened by sun and air’ this shows that the cottage maiden is strong and worked outside on land and it also suggests by the use of the words “contented with my cottage mates” that she was happy and a sense of community .

Then it says ‘why did a great lord find me out,’ this tells us that the lord has been chasing after her and she has been caught by him.

In this stanza there is a question asked to the question reveals that the girl is puzzled about the lord is after her. This suggests that she is aware that he has different motives rather than love and romance. This also shows that she knows the compliment is false and just a way of seducing her into bed.

The second stanza is where the great lord isn’t so “great” anymore. He lured and tricked her into going to his palace home. She then saw another life. Life without working and cleaning; however, the lord doesn’t take her seriously. He doesn’t feel like he has too as they are not married. “He wore me like a silken knot” is a simile which defines how he used her in his own way. He just wanted her as an accessory. “He changed me like a glove” this quote is also a simile which outlines h...

... middle of paper ...

...fair haired son, my shame, my pride” We are told she has a son, and that not only is it a memory of her shame but he is her pride. He’s all she has. Then the last three lines on stanza six are switched. The narrator is now talking to her son, her pride. “Your father would give lands for one” she is telling her son that if his father really wanted to, he would take him and would leave her (the narrator) with nothing.

In conclusion, “Cousin Kate” is an extremely complicated poem, and even though there’s hate and heartbreak throughout, she ends up with pride. The narrator let the lord control her, power over her and make her what he wanted; however, Cousin Kate didn’t. She would only let him have sex with her if she could still be pure; this means that she would have to be married to do so. This probably made the lord have massive respect for Kate and not the narrator.