Compare and contrast the poems "Cousin Kate" and "The seduction".
Compare and contrast the poems "Cousin Kate" and "The seduction"
The seduction is written by Eileen McAuley and tells the story of a young schoolgirl from Liverpool in her mid teens who has a one night stand after a party. The young girl falls pregnant after this has occurred and the poem deals with her reaction towards her pregnancy and the way society perceives her situation.
In Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti we are told the story of a "Cottage Maiden" who engaged in a brief relationship with a Lord. As a result of their intimacy the cottage maiden gives birth to a child, the Lords son. This poem details the Maidens feeling towards her son, the lord and her cousin Kate who is now married to the father of her child, again the Lord.
Just from the Brief outlines of the poem we can see that they both deal with unplanned pregnancies, the way the woman have been treated by the men they had relationships with and the way they are seen by society. But it is made obvious that the Cottage maiden was further along in her relationship with the lord than the young girl was with the youth she had just met previously. The poems are both about relationships but the two relationships differ entirely. The young girl hardly had any relationship prior to the baby being born and does not make contact with him afterwards whereas the cottage maiden knows the Lord before she engages in any sexual activities with him and she also has contact with him through her cousin Kate after their "fling" was finished. We can also see that there is a difference in the fact that the teenager is only pregnant whilst the cottage maiden has already had her baby so their emotions are going to differ as the teenage girl has not yet had her baby.
The seduction is split into two parts and the young girl's emotions and feelings change drastically from the first part to the second. In the beginning of the poem the girl is put across as quite naïve and blatantly childish, Immature and heavily reliant upon teen magazines for her information "reminded her of numerous stories from teenage magazines." As the poem goes on we begin to see that maybe this girl cannot separate real life from the fantasy she reads in these magazines. It is made clear to us that the young girl feels uncomfortable in her situation and she is using alcohol to make her feel more at ease "she giggled drunk and nervous." The boy had obviously planned to get her drunk as she would be "easier" and it seems that the more alcohol she consumed the higher his level of attractiveness became "he bought her drinks, so she fell in love." The effect of alcohol is also used cleverly in a simile "his eyes as blue as iodine". Iodine is Brown but when water is added it turns blue indicating her view on the boy was one seen through a drunken girl's eyes and she may not have had the same feelings for him if she had been sober. She seems to be trying very hard to impress the boy and her efforts seem to be wasted although she does not realise this.
In the second part of the poem the girl finds herself having to grow out of her immaturity really quickly and her mood changes extremely fast. She now feels betrayed by her teen magazines but she feels angrier with herself for believing them and being so naïve. She now realises that she took her childhood for granted, she was in such a rush to grow up she got herself into this situation and now all she wants is to be a child again and do normal teenage things "she broke the heels of her high white shoes." She admits to being "truly truly frightened" but she also feels " cheated by the promise of it all." This again goes back to the way sex was glamorised in the magazines she read, this young girl has just been exposed to the harshness of reality. After this Stanza the girl's feelings become bitter and the author shows just how different she has become in just a few short months. She tries to reconcile herself by saying "how would you know if you never took the chance" even though we know she just wants to return to normality and enjoy "the summer of her sixteenth year." Her teenage hopes and dreams have been shattered and she feels sick with what she has got herself into. We hear of her crying because she has missed the innocence around her, again implying that she longs for her childhood back.
In the last two stanzas she becomes very embittered and talks of the way society will turn blind eye to people taking drugs or people who are un-employed but will be so harsh when judging her situation and show so little sympathy. She also implies that she would prefer to commit suicide than to have to be judged by people who have no insight into her predicament. This shows us two things, one that she is feeling really desperate to get out of this situation and she is really remorseful for what's happened but also that if she ...
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In the last two stanzas she becomes very embittered and talks of the way society will turn blind eye to people taking drugs or people who are un-employed but will be so harsh when judging her situation and show so little sympathy. She also implies that she would prefer to commit suicide than to have to be judged by people who have no insight into her predicament. This shows us two things, one that she is feeling really desperate to get out of this situation and she is really remorseful for what's happened but also that if she would be willing to endanger her and her babies lives then maybe she still is very immature inside.
In Cousin Kate Christina Rossetti tries to portray the way in which the maiden's feelings change after having her baby. In the beginning of the poem the cottage maiden describes herself as "contented" this implies she was happy with her life and didn't care for any changes, she was contented in her attitude towards life, happy with where she worked and her friends, she had no other ambitions in life she had everything she desired. She also comments "not mindful I was fair" describing the way in which she perceived her appearance, she did not have knowledge of being beautiful she seemed happy with her appearance but was not aware that a lord would find her at all attractive.
We can see that the maiden was not happy with the way in which her life changed when she uses the rhetorical question "why did a great Lord find me out, To fill my heart with care?" She is basically asking, Why did her life have to change when she was so happy and why did the lord have to fill her heart with care and worry whereas before she was blissful unaware of any problems surrounding her. She feels shame in the fact that she enjoyed her relationship with the lord "woe's me for joy thereof" as in her time what she was engaging in would have been considered disgraceful. She feels used by the Lord and describes how if her hadn't come into her life she wouldn't be "an unclean thing" or if they had got married she "could have been a dove" and enjoyed a good life with him. The poet then starts to write of the cottage maiden's feelings towards her cousin Kate. She describes the way the Lord grew tired of the cottage maiden and then decided to start a relationship with Kate and we get the inclination that the cottage maiden has feeling of jealousy but also anger towards this. She feels the Lord wanted Kate because she was "good and pure" she was a virgin and the fact that she wouldn't give in to the Lord made him want her even more. This makes the cottage maiden angry with herself for giving in to him and she goes on to describe how he "bound Kate with his Ring" and the neighbours just called her an outcast thing. This implies that she believes if she hadn't had sex with The lord maybe he would have married her instead of Kate. Now the cottage maiden is stuck in her old life, and is unhappy because now she has had a taste for higher things she is not contented with what she had before anymore. She "sits and howls in dust" while Kate is now enjoying what the cottage maiden used to have but to a higher extent "You sit in gold and sing". In the next few stanzas the cottage becomes bitter towards her cousin and implies that She really loved him whereas her cousin Kate was bought by the lord, she says that if their situations had been switched she wouldn't have taken the Lord if he had been with her. The Maiden seems angrier with her cousin than she is with Lord but she feels betrayed by both of them.
Although in the last stanza the maiden's tone changes she begins to gloat. She realises that she has the one thing that her cousin Kate would like but cannot have, a baby. She knows her cousin worries about this but seems unsympathetic as she goes on to say how she will not being giving her son up and she is protective over him "cling closer, closer yet." She knows that the lord would "give lands for one" but she seems to be saying tough to both of them and maybe thinks Kate is getting the punishment she deserves from god, seens as in those days a baby was seen as a gift from god. The cottage maiden loves her son more than anything else in her life and shows this by saying "my shame, my pride" she thinks she should be ashamed of him but she is not she still loves him dearly.
In the seduction and Cousin Kate the male characters are portrayed very negatively.
Eileen McAuley describes a "youth" that met the young girl at the party. After the party he takes her to the docks in Liverpool, which have relevance to the way in which he perceives the young girl. The docks are typically associated with prostitutes, which suggests he doesn't think anymore of her than a cheap prostitute. This also comes to our attention when in the last line of the second stanza he "muttered little slag." This lets us no without a doubt that he had no respect for her or had no intention of becoming involved in any kind of relationship with her past that night. He comes across as quite cheap from the way the author writes, "leather jacket creaking madly" Expensive leather is extremely quiet and soft, the fact that his jacket was creaking implies it was not of an expensive nature. He also spits in the river, trying to impress her but really just showing his vulgarity. He had obviously planned the night, which makes him seem quite seedy and perverted, he seems to be in control of the night, he sat down, he led her, and he'd bought her more drinks. He seems to be the source of intoxicated state as he had been buying her drinks all night and "he handed her the vodka" at the river. The fact that he thinks he need to get her drunk before she will have any contact with him shows that maybe he doesn't really think that highly of himself anyway. The conversation between the couple is very one dimensional and shows the boy to be quite selfish as he only talks about subjects which concern or interest him and shows no interest in any subject relating or relevant to the young girl. The way the author describes how he spends his free time also gives us an insight into what type of boy the young girl is involved with. He says he spends most afternoons down by the river whilst he should be in school so the fact that he's a truant makes him seem less academic and clever and more juvenile. He also explains how he goes there alone so we get the inclination that maybe he doesn't have that many friends either or he could be antisocial. He says blatantly in from of the girl that he goes there with "his dads magazines" making him sound seedy and "sweet paint thinner" indicating that he abuses solvents. All in all he doesn't make himself sound to attractive to this young intelligent girl who is looking for "the perfect partner" to lose her virginity to.
He is very unromantic when it comes to "seducing" the young girl; in fact he is anything but seducing her he's just trying to grope her. The author writes about how he "contrived to kiss her" which again goes back to the way he had planned the night in advance but also shows us that he didn't have any interest in the girl he just wanted to use her for sex.
In Cousin Kate we do not find out about the Lord in such great detail but we get the inclination that he used his position and his money to trick the cottage maiden into a relationship when the author uses the phrase "he lured me to his palace home." The word lured implying seediness and trickery. The author creates the Lord as a very fickle man who treats his women like clothing, wore them as eye candy until they were dirty and boring only to throw them away and change them for a better model. He became bored with the cottage maiden after she had had sex with him and decided to pursue her cousin Kate. He comes across as quite persistent to get his own way as he does not give up on Kate and he ends up marrying her, so he can finally get his own way which shows that he will go to extremes to get what he wants. He obviously feels that love is based upon possessions and not emotions as he tries to buy Kate with his lands and money not with his personality, this make him seem shallow.
The setting for both poems is important, the seduction being set in the city and cousin Kate in the country has great relevance.
I touched upon the setting for the seduction earlier; the docks being associated with prostitution implies that the boy felt the girl was of that standard. Also the setting is not glamorous it is quite seedy and putrid. The way the author says "towards the frightening scum on the water" reflects on the dangerous situation that she has got herself involved in but also the word scum actually mirrors the boy's character. The author also goes on to describe "the Mersey, green as a septic wound" and I think this simile on the setting also reflects in the situation as a whole, infectious and unrewarding. Also the setting for the second part of the poem is a bedroom, isolated from the rest of the world, showing the young girls emotions, her longing to be cut of from the rest of her surroundings. The setting is a contrast from the first part of the poem, whereas the city is bustling, busy and noisy, her room is secluded, quiet and lonely. The change in scenery reflects the change of tone and emotion.
The choice of setting for Cousin Kate is quite straightforward; the countryside is perceived as a quite place full of nature and animals, unlike a city. A city is a more typical setting for a situation like the cottage maidens so the fact that it takes place in the countryside is even more ludicrous. Both authors use the settings to create effect but the effect they have on us is the complete opposite of each other. In the seduction the reader is supposed to relate the situation to the setting but in Cousin Kate it is used for shock effect and to make the situation seem more extreme as the countryside isn't the typical place you'd expect her relations to be taking place.
The poems both use imagery mainly clothing in Cousin Kate and colour imagery in the seduction. The Lord is said to have "worn me like a silken glove" this implies the way he used the cottage maiden. And in the seduction the use of the colour white is employed to portray her innocence and purity...this also comes across when she breaks her "high white shoes" after her relations with the youth because she is not pure anymore.
The structure of the poems varies. In the seduction the poem begins with a clear structure and a definite rhyming scheme (a, b, c, b) but as the poem goes on and the girl loses her grip more and more and becomes more intoxicated the poem of the structure follows along. When it comes to the second part of the poem the girl does not feel she has any structure in her life and this reflects in the structure of the poem and the fact that the rhyme scheme does not have a set pattern. This is a completely different to Cousin Kate, which maintains a solid rhyme scheme (abababcb) and structure throughout. The stanzas are also different between the two poems, The seduction has more stanzas but with fewer lines than Cousin Kate which has quite long stanzas but not as many.
Cousin Kate is written in the 1st person from the cottage maiden's point of view, so we know that the feelings being written down are true of her but the seduction is written in the third person and is told through the eyes of a stranger.
The overall mood of the seduction is that of despair for the young girl, she is angry with herself and society whilst feeling let down by the way she was lead on false promises of sex being glamorous. She sees no way out of her situation other than to starve herself .her dreams have been shattered and the tone of the second part of the poem reflects on this whereas the over all tone of cousin Kate is slightly different although she feels anger and betrayal from the Lord and Kate she feels she has a slight advantage over Kate in the fact that she has the one thing the Lord wants but Kate cannot give him. She feels there is some hope left in her life and her son is her pride and joy, she knows she will not let anyone take him away from her.
The characters in the poems share a lot of similarities and differences, the differences mainly occurring between the two main women characters and the similarities occurring in the male characters. The teenage girl is a clever girl with an education in progress and opportunities to do well in life, whereas the cottage maiden seems rather un-educated the author makes it seem as though she has been working since she was young, she didn't have many opportunities in life and her family were not as well off as the teenage girl in the seductions. Whereas it is blatantly obvious that the teenage girl is between 15 and 17 the cottage maiden seems to be older, from the way she talks of experiences and the way she reacts to situations is more mature than the young girls, she seems to have more experience in life and is a lot more realistic in her attitude towards life and people. When it comes to their situations and what happens to them, the cottage maiden blames the Lord and distributes the emotion between her cousin and the Lord, she does not blame herself at all and has no pity for herself; she just carries on with things. In contrast to this the young girl does not once mention the boy who got her into this situation, she blames herself completely but also is slightly self pitying, he does not even consider is to be anyone's fault but her own. The Cottage maiden comes across as a stronger, more realistic woman with a better attitude towards life than the young girl who wallows in self-pity and immaturity instead of trying to deal with the situation in hand. The male characters have some similar attributes. They both have no interest in the women once they have succeeded in getting what they want, They are both quite sad characters The Lord feels he needs to buy peoples love and the youth tries to impress the young girl in the most bizarre of ways. We learn more about the Lord than we do about the youth, as the girl does not have contact with him after she spent that one night with him but the lord continues to be mentioned in Cousin Kate until the end. We do not know whether the young boy knows of the girl's pregnancy but we are sure that the Lord knows of the cottage maidens this proves that he is very cold hearted, not to make any attempt to see his son. They both use the women for sex and the both come across as devious and scheming. There is the obvious difference between the two male characters in that the Lord is extremely rich and we get the impression that the boy is not that well off.
All in all the poems differ greatly in certain areas including the female characters, the point of view, the reactions and the structure but also share a lot of similarities in the male characters, the language used, imagery, the basic story lines and the settings.
I preferred the seduction to Cousin Kate because of the language used and the way the girls emotions are put across, the author uses powerful techniques to get vast emotions into words, like onomatopoeia "sobbed" metaphors "sliver stream of traffic" and similes "eyes as blue as iodine." Cousin Kate did not show such a wide array of techniques but I still enjoyed it and thought its more constant rhyme scheme was a good idea.
