reading response 2

We recently read Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits”, and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed. A major theme present throughout both of these works is the concept of a woman’s coyness. According to Oxford’s American Dictionary, coyness can be defined as being unresponsive to sexual advances, or using the pretense of shyness or modesty to be alluring. Both of the works we have read features a woman guilty of coyness.
For example, in “The Gilded Six-Bits,” Missie May thought she was being playful, chasing Joe around when he would return home on Saturdays with gifts for her in his pockets. By threatening to tear Joe’s clothes off if he doesn’t show her his pockets, Missie May actually tries to make Joe want her sexually. Every week they play this teasing game in which Missie is exceptionally coy. She pretends that all she wants is to discover what he has brought for her, when she really just tries to capture his attention. Often women try to be alluring even though they deny any sexual advances; it’s a fun game for them to play while trying to preserve their virginity. Even though Joe is her husband, Missie continues to be reserved during dinner, when Hurston writes, “Very little talk during the meal but that little consisted of banter that pretended to deny affection but in reality flaunted it.” (Page 367) She is reluctant to spell out the way she feels; instead, she prefers to present her emotions in a more reserved manner. But as the short story continues, we find that Missie is not as coy as we are led to believe. She later gives in to the sexual advances of Slemmons, the local ice cream man.
The theme of coyness continues to be carried out in the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. She presents a situation in which a woman feels drawn to a certain man, sexually. But despite her strong desire to be with him she asserts, “I find this frenzy insufficient reason for conversation when we meet again.” (Line 13-14) The woman turns down the man she wants in order to preserve her honor and virginity, but this is not without a struggle. She claims her body has committed treason, “of my stout blood against my staggering brain.” (Lines 10-11) In Millay’s poem the woman must be coy in order to uphold her reputation; it is out of necessity, not pretense, like Missie May in “The Gilded Six-Bits.”
Clearly the women in both of these works are coy. In the “Gilded Six-Bits,” Missie May is only pretending to be shy in order to appear alluring to her husband. However, in I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, the woman remains unresponsive to her sexual desires due to necessity; she wants to remain honorable. Even though the concept of coyness is present in both of these works, each uses it differently to communicate separate messages.