Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress - Essay Example

Most women are naturally shy and reserved in terms of sexual relationships and pursuit of such relationships.  Society places a stigma on those women who are too forward or who pursue sex too much.  Because society does this, many women become offended if their suitors do not perceive them as reserved in regards to sex.  The speaker of the poem tells the Mistress that the “coyness . . . were no crime” only “Had we but world enough and time” (2 and 1).  This approach is the equivalent of the modern pick-up artist’s technique of complimenting a woman but combining an insult into the compliment.

  The speaker compliments his mistress for her shyness but then insults her for putting off his advances for too long.  Most women would recognize the insult hidden within the compliment and take offense to the tactics of the speaker.        The speaker continues insulting the Mistress’ shyness and coyness and aggressively attacks another of most women’s insecurities, their beauty.  After informing his mistress that he would wait hundreds of years for her to give in to his advances, he revokes that statement by insulting his mistress’ beauty.

  He builds himself up by detailing how he would wait for her love “Till the conversion of the Jews” (Marvell 10).  But, he informs her that should she wait that long her “beauty shall no more be found” (25).  This fear is one of many women.  They fear that time will rob them of their beauty and of the ability to attract a man. The attack by the speaker on the virginity of the Mistress is aggressive and unnecessary. Not only does the speaker insult the Mistress, he also weaves sexual imagery into his poem.

Many women find overt sexual imagery to be insulting and degrading as it indicates that the man views them as a sex object. Many phrases within the poem seem benign but have a sexual undertone. The speaker tells his mistress that his “vegetable love should grow” (Marvell 11). This image is sexual because it invokes the common societal convention of comparing genitalia to fruits and vegetables. Female breasts are melons or cantaloupes, and men’s penises are cucumbers or wood. When the speaker references vegetable love that will grow, a female reader would not be misreading if she took the phrase to refer to his erection.

This overt sexual imagery dehumanizes the woman into just her sexual nature. The speaker continues this dehumanization of the Mistress by telling her that he would devote “