Roles

These three works, Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits”, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” and Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” all display the theme of the relationship between men and women, and more specifically the woman’s role in that relationship. All of these works portray a stereotypical role that woman were, and in some respects still are, expected to play in society and in the household.
In Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits” we see the interaction between Joe and Missie May. It is in the opening scene that we see one of the stereotypical roles that woman were expected to be, and that was beautiful and put together after working in the house all day and running errands. It is in this scene, of Missie May trying frantically to bathe herself to prepare for her husband’s arrival. The most interesting part of this is that during the time this story was published this was what was expected no questions were asked and women did no complain. This contrasts greatly with the views of woman today.
In Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” we see the speaker in the story talk about all the roles that she must fulfill as a woman to please a man. But most interestingly, at the end the speaker defies these roles by stating, “…let me make it plain:/ I find this frenzy insufficient reason/ For conversation when we meet again” (Lines 12-14). Here we see the speaker going against the typical and the ordinary and standing up to the man, arguing.
In Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” we see the speaker’s desires expressed, his feelings, his wishes of what his mistress would be. Here we see the emphasis on the sexual desires, and how much the speaker would like to be with the mistress, sexually and for her to give herself to him. Again this is another stereotypical role that woman were placed in, a place of being at the mercy of men and their desires, their wants and their wishes. But I think the speaker in this poem gives the subject more freedom, while at the same time not holding back his feelings and what he really wants.