Blog 3

The two poems, I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, and To His Coy Mistress, and the short story, The Gilded Six-Bits, all deal with the issue of relationships and the conflicts that arise. In To His Coy Mistress, the speaker is trying to convince the woman to whom he speaks to sleep with him. He says life is too short to say no. In I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, it is quite the opposite. The speaker is a woman who has had obvious sexual relations with a man. It seems at first that she is overcome with feelings for him, but at the end she states that even though they have a history, she will not see him again. The Gilded Six-Bits is again another twist on this idea and arises between the struggles of a married couple. All three of these works show this idea of the relationships and the issues that often surface.
In The Gilded Six-Bits The couple, Joe and Missie May, have to work through the struggles of adultery and the want for money or wealth. In this relationship it is obvious that there is an obvious difference between the man and woman’s role. Missie May feels obliged to take care of and be a good wife for her husband. She believes that she is worth less than him. She has an affair with Otis Slemmons, because she wants to get the gold piece that he always wears around his wrist. Her husband Joe always talks of him and all his wealth. I believe that she slept with him not for her own good but she wanted her husband to have the coin so he would know that he is better than Slemmons in her eyes. It is obvious that Joe controls the relationship, because Missie’s actions reflect Joe’s. After Joe catches her with Otis, she knows he will leave or she will have to. But she follows his orders or his signals that he still loves her. Their relationship has rough patches but it is obvious that Joe loves Missie and he understands that she has flaws and he loves her just the same.
In To His Coy Mistress, the man also seems to be somewhat of a dominant figure in the relationship. In this poem, the speaker is trying to convince his mistress to sleep with him. He discusses the idea that if she doesn’t his love will die with her and she will never get to experience it. Time is fleeting, so she must take advantage of the time they have together now. The speaker views their relationship and a climax of the moment he is able to get his mistress to sleep with him. It is obvious that he loves the woman, but also raises the question if this is all a woman is worth, just her body.
The final poem, I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, gives us a completely different view of the relationship between men and woman. The speaker begins by describing an intimate event that she had with a certain man, with great imagery to portray the intensity of the moment. Yet, she concludes that even though this happened between them and she still may have feelings for him it should go no further. In this poem the woman takes charge of her own life. She is able to make the decisions she wants and has no shame in speaking her mind.
All of these works make you think of a woman’s worth and her place next to a man. In The Gilded Six-Bits, the woman’s place next to the man both broke their relationship in the first place but was also what repaired it. But when reading I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, it is able to portray the hardships of being a woman. Is our place supposed to be by the man or are we supposed to be able to take a stand and live our own lives, not one that concerns us both?