Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “ I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” and Zora Hurston's “The Gilded Six Bits” all revolve around the central theme of love. Love is presented in different degrees with different circumstances in each of the three readings.
I want to begin with Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her poem deals with infatuation and lust. The woman in the poem has just encountered what seems to be a one night stand. She begins by asserting her needs as a woman to feel excitement. She does this in the word zest in line 4. The rush of intimacy causes her to feel these exciting emotions that last throughout the night. She is completely infatuated with her lover and he clouds her mind for the time being. But she lets the reader and the person involved know that tonight is the extent of their love affair. In line 11, she says, “I shall remember you” meaning that this is a one time occurrence. And continues this by explaining in plain and simple terms that when they meet again, they do not have to discuss what took place because what happened that night was left behind that night as well. The sonnet is presented in the abab throughout the first 8 lines, and it continues with cdcd throughout the last 6 lines making it an octave and sestet. This adds to the poem because it shows the progression of her love affair and the quick assertion that it is only about lust in the last 6 lines and that she has no interest in pursuing this love any further.
Andrew Marvell’s poem is one of reluctance and love that builds as the reader continues. The man in the poem is desperate to have sexual relations with his wife. He professes his devotion and love for her with numerous examples relating to history, nature, and time. He wants to get his point across that he loves her more than anything physical but is yearning for the physical nature of the relationship. He wants her to succumb to his lust for her and give up her “long preserved” virginity. But in this he stresses that as time goes by, her beauty declines and he wants to savor what is still left of this through their sexual encounters. For his “echoing” cries for lust will become dull and unheard through time. This proposes the reader with the question of what love is composed of. If one relies on the physicality of lust, they will not experience true love. But I also think he conjoins the physicality with the internal connection between two people. I think that they go hand in hand with one another. Physical attraction is an important part of any relationship and true love is build off of proper attention to both aspects. But the physical aspect is a direct result of the internal connection established through time and devotion. The goal is not to reach the state of physicality; it’s supposed to occur naturally. Zora’s Hurston’s story was interesting because I found myself reading the slang out loud in an accent trying to put myself in the time, place, and state of mind of the story. It is about a couple trying to make the best of what they were given and have around them without a greed or lust for material gain. Although they do not have many luxuries in life, they cherish what they do have. I pictured it as a love story with white picket fences and two people completely consumed by each other. Each day is another day that they enjoy together. Especially Saturday which was Joe’s day off. This is when he shows his everlasting love for her through the games they play with each other and play fighting. He lets her know that she is everything to him. But when he begins talking about this new rich black man and the ice cream parlor, Missie May begins wondering why he wants gold and how to come across it. Maybe someday someone will lose it and it will just fall into their laps. I know that there are many underlying themes in this story and they were difficult to separate. I think she slept with the man in order to “find” Joe’s gold. I do not think she did it because she felt lust because Joe was big and strong and appears much more physically attractive. And when Joe walks in on them, I think after his fit of violence, he realizes that she only wanted him to have his gold. Missie does not understand why Joe doesn’t leave her. She tries to do everything for him to make up for her mistake. He holds onto the gold piece in order to remind himself that they both made a big mistake. They were completely content with the way things were going in their life and by bringing material possession into the picture, things became skewed and complicated. Although he is scarred by what happened, his love for her is forever instilled in his heart and the same is true for his wife. I believe he shows this through the candy kisses that he buys for her at the end of the story. He finally forgives her and most importantly himself for lust for material possession and casts the fake gold away for the real gold, that of their love.