cousin kate

Authors Avatar

GCSE Coursework Assignment

Pre 1900 and Post Poetry Comparison

Listed Author: Christina Rosetti

In this assignment I will be analysing two poems, ‘Cousin Kate’ and ‘The Seduction’. Christina Rosetti wrote ‘Cousin Kate’ in 1879. In this poem Christina describes a cottage maiden who was discovered by a wealthy Lord who appears to fall in love with her but deceives her because half way through it becomes apparent that he is using her for her ability to have a child. The Lord desires a son in order to have an heir to his belongings. During his time with the maiden he comes across Kate who is the maidens younger cousin. The Lord then ditches the Maiden for the younger sexier cousin Kate. When the Lord is with Kate the Maiden discovers she is pregnant with the Lords child and has a baby boy. She has mixed feelings for her son, as she is ashamed of him because she is not married to his father but also proud of him because he is hers. The Maiden does not inform the Lord about their child. Kate fails to inform the Lord that she is incapable of having children because she knows that if she tells the Lord he will ‘dump’ her for another. The Seduction is written by Eileen McAuley and is based in the 1980’s in Blackpool. The poem is about a teenage girl who goes out clubbing for what seems to be her first time. Half way through the night a boy about the same age persuades the girl to join him at an unromantic place near a river and gets her heavily drunk. He then seduces her into having sexual intercourse. Then after 3 months she discover she is pregnant due to that one nightstand.

The main elements of ‘Cousin Kate’ are love and relationships, marriage, motherhood abuse of power and wealth, betrayal and the roles of the female characters. I will start with the element of love, there are three different types of love and relationships shown in ‘Cousin Kate’. One type of love and relationship shown is the true love given from the Cottage maiden towards the Lord and the relationship she had with him. She would over look everything he did to her, which he threw back in her face when he ditched her for her cousin Kate. It became apparent that all he wanted from her was the sexual pleasure. The other kind of love and relationship is the pretend love that Kate shows the Lord. She didn’t care what the Lord did to her because all she really wants is his money and wealth. The Lord also shows pretend love towards both the Cottage Maiden and Cousin Kate, he shows this love in order to use them for his pleasure and also to help him get a son/heir. He also couldn’t care less about his relationships with them as long has he got what he wanted. Next I will move onto marriage. There is only one marriage in this poem and that is between cousin Kate and the Lord to quote the poem “he bound you with his ring”. Kate obviously is only marrying him for the money as she does most things with him for that reason. Motherhood only comes into the poem at the very end where the cottage maiden has the Lord’s child and feels mixed emotions about him, as she is ashamed of him because she is not married to his father but also proud of him because he is hers, to quote “My fair haired son, my shame, my pride”. Abuse of power and wealth and betrayal enter the poem through the Lords actions like his ability to get whatever girl he wants for whatever he wants e.g. when he goes after the maiden, she falls in love with him but he has no feeling for her he just wants sexual pleasure and a son. He also does the same with Kate but she just goes with him for money nothing else. He betrays the maiden when he ditches the maiden for her sexier, younger cousin Kate. The female roles are basically about the women that have fallen for this wealthy Lords charm then the lord will use these girls for his pleasure.

Join now!

The themes in ‘the Seduction’ are almost the same but vary in certain ways because it is a more modern poem and substances like alcohol and drugs are involved where as in ‘Cousin Kate’ it is more a case of true and pretend love. First of all I will go through the love that the teenage girl drunkenly displays towards the boy. Because she was drunk she wasn’t in the right state of mind so wasn’t thinking straight when she was supposedly falling in love with him. I cannot explore the element of marriage because there is no type of ...

This is a preview of the whole essay