Power in Relationships

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed,” Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits” each deal with the issue of who holds the control in relationships. In each of the narratives, a different character seems to have power over their partner in the relationship, and the character’s partner does not question this issue of dominance.
In “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed,” the male character seems to have control over the speaker of the poem. The speaker uses words such as “bear” and “weight” in line 5 and “undone” and “possessed” in line 8 to show the power he exerts over her. However, his domineering role is a familiar comfort for her, considering how the speaker says “leave me once again undone.” By the end of the poem, the speaker exudes more independence and control and appears to be more distant from her lover as she doubts that what she feels is even enough of a reason for conversation when she sees him next.
In “To His Coy Mistress,” the woman that the speaker is pursuing clearly holds the power in the relationship. The speaker has to beg her to seize the day and sleep with him while they are still young. He recognizes her control in this issue and respects her “long preserved virginity.”
In “The Gilded Six-Bits” the husband, Joe, holds the power in the relationship after he catches his wife cheating on him. His wife, Missie May, tries to hold on to him by granting his every wish and bending over backwards to please him. When her husband shows the least bit of interest in her, she comments that there is “no need to die today” since he needs her for a few more minutes. Her guilt of her cheating leads to her submissiveness and causes her to accept her husband as the dominant partner in the relationship.
These three works illustrate interesting points regarding how relationships operate and why they function in this manner based on who holds the power. The works show that the male is not always the dominant figure in the relationship as old-fashioned narratives may suggest. Instead, these works prove that is possible for the woman to be in control of the relationship.