The “Ruined Maid” provides us with disturbing images and pictures of love and relationships because the poem is about a woman who has become “ruined” which means that she’s had sex before marriage. She’s turned the meaning of this into a good thing while most people thought that it was a bad thing because it meant that the woman had no self-respect and that they were looked upon as prostitutes in a sense.
The poem starts with Melia and a woman talking about Melia’s life and how she’s been because the woman hadn’t seen her in a while, only to her surprise she discovered that Melia had become “ruined”. Melia has made the term “ruined” good because she now has rich clothing and lots of expensive jewellery.
As we know from the film version of the poem, Melia was ruined by a close friend to the family, her cousin. She was raped in a forest and this is the most disturbing image, because it showed Melia being seduced by her cousin and then being raped by him in a revolting manner. She was looked upon as the one that was in the wrong because she should have done something to try and put amends to it. Also she was looked at in a different manner because he could have been saying that it was her fault and that he could have offered her goods on plate to him. The poem is about poverty and purity, this meant that women should save sex until marriage because then they’d know that they’ve found the right person for them.
The actual poem is written in a Ballard style and it’s conversational because of the dialog between Melia and the other woman. The poem has a rhyming couplet scheme that goes AA, BB, and CC, also the beat to each line is four beats per line. The poem also consists of enjambment within the verses e.g. “You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream … ‘True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,’ she said.”
“To Her Coy Mistress” was written by Andrew Marvell during the steward period were sex was more relaxed. The main theme of the poem is sex and carpe dime. The poem is set out into three verses; 1.-If, 2. - But and 3. - However.
This poem is all about time and if we had time this and that could happen.
The disturbing pictures or images of the love and relationships are thought the poem. The “coy mistress” is actually a prostitute, because the man who is going to have sex with her says “For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love lower at this rate.” This statement taken from the poem meant the respect that was given to the lady was enough even though she may not think so, also this sentence uses a metaphor because he’s practically saying that he’s paying for what he wants, even if that includes sex. The poem is a sonnet in which it uses a lot of sexual imagery for example “Let us roll all our strength and all, Our sweetness up into one ball” this is where Marvell lets us imagine the “coy mistress” and the man making “love”. This man towards the end gets frustrated or so it seems so because there isn’t enough time and then wants her to just make a future with him and have his baby. These doses create some disturbing relationship images because the man could run away with another woman and then leave her on her own with the baby.
I think that for different reasons both poems “The Ruined Maid” and “To His Coy Mistress” provide us with disturbing images of love and relationships. While reading both poems I have discovered that they both relate to sex in different contexts. Also “The Ruined Maid” was written in a stricter period so the images were going to be more horrifically horrifying than “To His Coy Mistress” because the stewards had a more relaxed way of thinking about sex.
