BLog 3

Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits,” Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being a Woman and Distressed,” and Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” all display themes such as greed, love, and lust.
In “The Gilded Six-Bits,” Hurston uses the themes of love, lust, and greed. Missie May describes with such feeling how much she loves her husband and the games they play. She even questions what is so great about Slemmons when Joe describes him. However, later in the story, she speaks about finding gold and money. Joe says that he does not want anything but her. When Joe comes home loving her more than ever with the idea of babies, he finds her with Slemmons in their bedroom. Missie May’s actions can be viewed as greed or just lonesomeness. After her husband spends so much time laboring so that he can provide for them and hopefully start a family, she is disrespecting him by sleeping with another man. However, this could also be looked upon with pity. Missie May’s husband spends so much time at work she longs for him.
In the poems “I, Being a Woman and Distressed” and “To His Coy Mistress” lust is described in two different ways. In “I, Being a Woman and Distressed” Edna St. Vincent Millay writes about an attraction to a man who is not fitting for the speaker. The poem describes the lust the speaker feels towards this man, but in the end, the speaker comes to the realization that she should not try for something that is not good for her. In the poem “To His Coy Mistress,” Andrew Marvell describes the speaker’s lusting after a woman with the empty promise of love. The speaker is trying to convince the woman to sleep with him by telling her that he loves her. Really, the speaker just wishes for sex. His greed for lust is depicted in this poem.