The 1st line of verse 2 quotes “He lured me to his palace home” The word lured tells me that the lord seduced the maiden and set a trap on her.
The 4th line of verse 2 quotes “His plaything and his love” The word plaything tells me that he used her for sex and then got tired of her.
The 5th line of verse 2 quotes “He wore me like a silken knot” The quote wore me like a silken knot tells me that he could do anything with her and he had her under his power.
The 6th line of verse 2 quotes “He changed me like a glove” The quote changed me like a glove tells me that he got tired of her like a piece of clothing.
The 3rd line of verse 5 quotes “If he had fooled not me but you” The word fooled tells that he tricked her and probably promised to marry her.
The 5th line of verse 5 quotes “Nor brought me with his land” The word brought suggests that he probably try to buy women with his land and money.
The poet is trying to tell us how different the cottage maiden and cousin Kate is and the relationship they have.
Marriage: He changed me like a glove/he bound you with his ring. Suggests that the maiden was used and Kate went and married him after that.
Love: My love was true/your love was writ in sand. Suggests that the maiden truly loved the lord and Kate just wanted his money, land and the title she would get.
Child: I’ve got a gift you have not got. Suggests that the maiden had his child and cousin Kate isn’t likely to have one because she is probably incapable.
The obvious difference between cousin Kate and the maiden is that now cousin Kate is married and has a title so everyone looks up to her and called her pure. And since the lord seduced the maiden and she had his child, everybody looked down on her and called her an outcast thing. It also shows that cousin Kate is cold and scheming.
My opinions of the characters are that I feel sorry for the maiden and I sympathise and empathise with the maiden and the situation she was in. The lord’s character, I really didn’t like because he went around and seduced young innocent girls who admired his wealth and power. Cousin Kate shouldn’t have married him after what he did to the maiden and family should always stick together and she sounded like she had no morals or ethics.
My opinion of the poem as a whole, I really enjoyed it. It gave a strong feeling of hatred, bitterness and love. It gave me an idea of how society was like during her time and the hard times and emotions she went through. The maiden goes through loving the lord, into hating cousin Kate, bitterness for being so foolish and having the last laugh as cousin Kate can’t have a child and the lord’s inheritance goes to waste.
The lines I find most effective are “To lead a shameless shameful life”, “So now I moan an unclean thing who might have been a dove” and the last one “My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride” because they convey the maidens emotions the most strongest.
The Seduction.
The poem is about a girl who goes to a party, gets drunk and meets a boy. He dances with her and gets her some more vodka to drink. She falls in love; he takes her to the docks and seduces her.
The boy has done all this before and he is just after one thing. He despises the girl by calling her a “little slag”.
He is into football and talks to the girl about “Sammy Lee and Ian Rush.” He is also into boxing and talks about “ The Milk Cup and the next McGuigan fight.” He goes down to the docks during school hours with his dad’s porn magazines and paint thinner (he sniffs solvents). This tells me that he is a typical streetwise “bad boy”. The quote “The kisses that tasted of nicotine”, tell me that as a stereotypical bad boy he smokes and when he takes the girl down to the docks, he comes prepared with Listerine. The quote “His kiss was scented by Listerine.”
He uses this quote to lure the girl from the party t down the docks “I’ll take you the river where I spend the afternoons, when I should be in school or eating me dinner. Where I go, by me self, with me dad’s magazines and a bag filled with shimmering, sweet paint thinner.”
The way I feel about the boy is that he is nothing but a sad boy who thinks he is hard that smokes, sniffs solvents and probably takes drugs. His dad is a bad influence on him as his son runs of with his porn magazines and seduces young girls.
The girl is naïve and obviously doesn’t know what’s coming at her. She is inexperienced, doesn’t goes to parties and not used to meeting boys. She is kind of a god girl, studies hard, bit narrow-minded and she’s taking her O levels soon as the quote says “About O levels she’d be sitting in June.” She thinks she’s in love from the sad soppy sad romantic stories in magazines. She doesn’t realise that reality can be very different. When she is seduced and finds out she is pregnant; she feels betrayed, used and manipulated. In the quote “When she discovered she was three months gone” and “She sobbed in the cold, locked darkness of her room.” She finally began to realise that everything that she thought of love was a lie and she feels betrayed from the broken promises that magazines fill your head up with. “And she ripped all her My Guy and her Jackie photo comics until they were just bright paper, like confetti, strewn on the carpet.”
The actual seduction happened at Birkenhead docks by the Mersey “green as a septic wound” and “scum on the water”. It is not very romantic; it’s more sordid, unpleasant, dark and dirty. The water is polluted, she’s drunk and he is using mouthwash. He came prepared with Listerine instead of condoms.
The mood of the poem changes drastically from part one to part two when she finds out she is pregnant. In the poem the girl thinks that its “better to smoke scented drugs”, “better to starve yourself like a sick precocious child” and “better, now, to turn away, move away, fade away, than to have the neighbours whisper that `you always looked the type`.” In the beginning she feels happy that she finally found romance and then have all of her opinions and dreams be shattered by a stupid promise by magazines. I feel really sorry for the girl since she is not so streetwise and believed `tacitly made` promises.
She feels devastated about the situation she’s in and feels she has wasted her future by the promises of it all. She has rejected the magazines and the high-heeled shoes. As in the poem “And she ripped all her My Guy and her Jackie photo comics until they were just bright paper, like confetti, strewn on the carpet. And on that day she broke the heels of her high white shoes” because she has no time for them. The poet does effectively convey her sense of loss because the girl has little to look forward to now, unlike her friends.
I am very shocked that the girl would rather be anorexic or a drug addict then being pregnant. I am quite shocked when she would rather be dead or unemployed then talked about behind her back by the neighbours but then she is naïve and narrow-minded.
I feel that this is a really good poem and the poet has really made the girl’s feelings clear. I think the poem is more accessible to girls than boys because it tells us not to be so naïve and don’t make a mistake that you might regret for the rest of your life. I really liked the way the poet describes the boy and girl and how different they are to each other. I disliked the fact that the boy came prepared with Listerine instead of condoms. The bit that sticks most on my mind is why didn’t she see it coming and how could she be so naïve and believe those glamorous girly magazines that she reads.
Comparison.
Similarities: Two young innocent unmarried girls that gets pregnant. The girls are both seduced by men that don’t really care about them. The men don’t know about the girls being pregnant, they leave the next day or kick them out to the streets and the girls were happy before they were seduced now they’re miserable.
Differences: The maiden doesn’t really regret what she did with the lord but the girl does. The poems are written in different times, one is written 100 yrs ago and the other is written in the 80’s. “Cousin Kate” has a third person in the poem and “The Seduction” is more modern.
Theme and storyline: The story is about two young girls who get seduced by men and left on their own by being pregnant. The girls are sad, depressed and ashamed of what they have done.
Maiden and the girl: They both end up pregnant and they both love the boys. Her neighbours treated the maiden like dirt. The girl was just talked about by her neighbours.
Lord and the boy: They are both after one thing and they got it. The lord is rich and powerful and has done this before. The boy is a smoker, glue sniffing wannabe thug.
Well the poem “Cousin Kate” has the maiden looking back at it and the feelings she was going through. The poem “The Seduction” has the girl talking about what happened and onwards. The setting is very different the seduction was set in the docks and cousin Kate in the countryside.
I prefer the seduction because it talks more about the matters and it’s more modern. It gives the girls reaction towards being pregnant and how she would like to be anything else then the situation she’s in and it’s more descriptive than cousin Kate.
