Compare and contrast " The Seduction" and "Cousin Kate".

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Compare and contrast “ The Seduction” and “Cousin Kate

“Cousin Kate” and “The Seduction” are poems. They are both about girls who become pregnant out of wedlock. Christina Rossetti wrote “Cousin Kate” in the 1850’s and Eileen McAuley wrote “The Seduction” in the 1980’s. In the poems the girls become pregnant and the men abandon them. Because the poems are about the same situation, the girl becoming pregnant, the will be many similarities. However there is also a time difference of about one hundred and thirty years so one would expect differences.

        The poems are similar because of each society’s attitude. In “The Seduction” society gossip about her, “The neighbours whispered she always looked the type”.

Similarly in “Cousin Kate” society criticised her calling her an “outcast thing”. The reaction in “Cousin Kate” is harsher than “The Seduction”. “Cousin Kate” was rejected from society whereas the girl in “The Seduction” was talked about although she reacts in a worse way. Society reacts in different ways because of the time difference of about one hundred and thirty years. Society punishes the female because she carries the baby and we live in a patriarchal society.  The male can just walk away and carry on life whereas the female would have to raise the child. Society’s views have changed. Nowadays, sex and pregnancy outside wedlock is not so frowned upon as it was in the 1850s.

         In both poems the male is blamed for what happened. In “The Seduction” the male took her away from safety, “He led her to the quiet bricks of Birkenhead Docks.” In “Cousin Kate” the male tricked her, “He lured me to his palace home.”

The poets used loaded language to portray the males as in control. In “The Seduction” he took her to a place where nobody could help her. In “Cousin Kate” the poet used “lured” to suggest the male tricked her into going with him. We feel more hostility towards the boy in “The Seduction” because we know more about him. We don’t know much about the Lord in “Cousin Kate” because the cottage maiden feels more hostility towards her cousin. In “The Seduction” the reader is there the night the child was conceived so the reader knows more about the male. McAuley successfully portrays his vulgarity using different senses, “his leather jacket creaking madly” and “kisses that tasted of nicotine”.

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        Both poems portray images of innocence. In “The Seduction” McAuley shows the girl’s innocence by using her facial features, “All wide blue eyes”. This suggests that she is innocent just like babies and children. In “Cousin Kate” Rossetti writes, “Who could have been a dove”. A dove is white and white signifies purity. If she had not had sex then she would still be pure and might have been a dove. Now she has had sex she will never become a dove because she will never be pure. Although we get the impression of innocence we also get the impression ...

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