Resisting Temptation

One very common theme between all three readings; To His Coy Mistress, The Gilded Six-Bits, and I, Being a Woman Born and Distressed, is dealing the sexual temptations and trying to suppress and control them in regards to the standards of our own day and age. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, the speaker is trying to persuade his young mistress to have sex with him while keeping in mind the cultural expectations of the time. Women in the 1600s were taught to be pure and never give in to sexual inhibitions, therefore the speaker argues using the themes of time and carpe diem to try and persuade his lady to do what she has been forbidden to do.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem is from a female speaker, and contrasts to Marvell’s poem by giving us a woman’s point of view on the topic. The speaker describes that she is, “Urged…and feel[s] a certain zest/ To bear your body’s weight upon my breast”. In reading the poem I get a sense that the speaker’s sexual feelings are meant to be personal and not voiced, that what she is saying goes against the culturally accepted view of women and therefore must be kept private. In comparison to Marvell’s poem, it’s strange to think that in this society men are allowed to openly voice these feelings, yet women must hide them and be ashamed of them. Although these poems were written centuries apart, the same social standards for men and women seem to apply for both societies. Even today we have the same standards, that proper women are never openly sexual, while men may freely voice and act on their sexual urges.
Zora Neale Hurston’s short story, however, does provide us with a different view of sex and society. Written during the 1950s, when housewives had taken over, and conservatism was at its highest, this story shows us how women may give in to their sexual impulses, just as much as men. When Missie May committed adultery, she immediately regretted her actions and slipped in to the real world of sexist roles where, because she committed infidelity, she felt her husband must leave her and she would become a useless nobody in the world. She figures that now she has broken the cardinal rule of marriage she has no purpose in the world, “No more nothing. So why get up?” And although her husband forgives her, showing his own disregard for society’s sexual roles, the flip side is that, would Missie May have forgiven Joe in a shorter time because men have always been portrayed as the ones most expected to commit infidelity? Perhaps one day these sexually defined roles will even out, or maybe one day women will become the sexually pursuers instead of the pursued.