Male and Female Relationships

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, the rhyme scheme of this sonnet shows that the first eight lines portray a very important issue and the following six lines give a response to the particular issue. The issue the speaker addresses is the idea that women shouldn’t have to have a relationship, sexual or not, with whomever ever is courting her. Many woman in Millay’s time succumbed to the idea that men should always get what they desire. The speaker mentions how she has given in to male desires and in the end became attached and confused. Her response to this problem is denying males the luxury of getting what they wish. The male that she chooses she will love and the male she doesn’t like she will hate but pity because they don’t know any better. The speaker is telling men that she refuses to surrender to their lines but will pity them because they don’t know any better. She is telling women to join her and not give in to male and societal pressures because in the end you are only hurting yourself.

In Andrew Marvell’s To My Coy Mistress, the speaker is trying to convince his mistress to have sex with him. He begins the poem by mentioning time, his only and strongest argument. He states, “Had we but world, enough, and time,” meaning if he had the time he would wait for her but they don’t have time. He continues by saying all the things that would happen if they had enough time. He makes Biblical references to Noah and the Ark and the conversion of the Jews. He proceeds by referring to her different body parts that he would admire for thousands and thousands of years, if he had the time. The speaker says they don’t have an infinite amount of time because eventually they both will die. He turns her coyness into a sin because if she waits to long and dies her virginity would be wasted. He then changes his tone and says that she will get old and she will not look as nice and desirable as she does now. He closes by telling her to succumb to his request and have sex with him before it’s too late.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s The Gilded Six-Bits, Joe and Missie May are an established African American couple who spends every Saturday, Joe’s day off, together. Missie May is a strong, intelligent woman who loves her husband, Joe, but at times gives into his demands. Joe is a respectable man who works the night shift six days a week. A new African American man, Slemmons comes to town and opens up an ice cream parlor; he claims that he is really rich and everybody in town believes him. Joe believed him and was really impressed with him but Missie May wasn’t. One day Joe comes back from work a day early and catches Missie May sleeping with Slemmons and beats him up and takes his, gold watch. Missie May says that she didn’t mean to do it but Slemmons said he was going to give her gold. After a few weeks of guilt and shame, Missie May finds out that Slemmons was a liar and his gold watch was fake but Joe forgives her and everything returns back to normal after the birth of their first child.

All three readings incorporate with the theme of male and female interaction. Millay exclaims that women should not give into the expectations of men. However, she believes that men don’t know any better and it’s partially women’s fault because they give men what they want and succumb to their desires. Marvell’s poem is an example, of the men that Millay pities. He writes a whole poem on trying to persuade his mistress to lose his virginity to him before it is too late and she get old or dies. In Hurston’s short story Missie May gives into the words and opinions of men. For example, when she wanted to get seconds at dinner and Joe said no, she doesn’t stand up for herself. Also, when she sleeps with Slemmons she says that he kept coming on to her. By giving into the male commands she hurt the one person she loved the most, Joe.