& # 8216 ; To His Coy Mistress & # 8217 ; Essay, Research Paper

Ryan Schmidt

English 114

David Upchurch

10/2/96

Wordss on & # 8220 ; To His Coy Mistress & # 8221 ;

Either you have sex with me or you die. This is a really strong

statement which, when said, has to acquire person & # 8217 ; s attending ; and that is

precisely what Andrew Marvell intends for the reader in this verse form. He

wants the undivided attending of this kept woman so that he can frighten her

and hotfoot her into doing a determination the manner he wants and in due clip.

Filled with clip flavored symbolism, this carpe diem verse form, & # 8220 ; To His Coy

Mistress & # 8221 ; by Andrew Marvell, exemplifies the seize the twenty-four hours subject.

The cyclical, life typifying river, the H2O fluxing by like

clip, is the first topographic point Marvell places the characters. And even

though they are really far apart, clip still flows by for them both. As

the H2O flows, this construct begins to suggest at the shortness of clip,

for them to hold sex, the beginning of new life. He so proceeds to

claim that he could love her 10 old ages before the inundation, something

already antediluvian, and up to the terminal of the universe, utilizing the

juxtapositioning of the two positions of clip heighten his statement and to

convince to accept his offer by stating her of his long-run committedness

for her in the short-run. This inundation besides symbolizes life in the

fresh start of the new compact. Because clip supports traveling, with or

without them, they must be active participants and non merely the inactive

witness. Otherwise, the destiny Marvell relates would go their

world.

Marvell & # 8217 ; s vegetable love is instead oxymoronic. Love is non

usually like the uncaring, thoughtless, and noncommunicating works.

And yet his love is vegetable in that it is non adaptable. She is the

H2O, nutrient, and visible radiation for his love ; and every bit long as she is at that place, he

will love her. She is evrerything that supports his love, and if she

is non at that place, his veggie could non be supported and would decease. His

thought of love seems to merely be to state that he loves her for the

possibility that he can portion animal cognition ; nevertheless, this is why he

attempts to convert her to prehend the twenty-four hours. And because of this love he

felt they must take advantage of what clip they have.

Following comes the menace of penalty if she happens to go on

down her dark way of obstinate involuntariness to prosecute with him.

Suddenly the desert is before them and beauty

is gone everlastingly. The

life giving and symbolic H2O is gone. She & # 8217 ; s dead and the worms are

her lone company. These worms are symbolic of two different thoughts.

First they are phallic in form and do stand as phallic symbols. They

are besides another cyclical representation of clip, in that they are portion

of the rhythm that will interrupt her organic structure down into dirt, feed the trees,

provender an animate being, etc. So he tries scare her and to coerce her into the

determination to prehend the twenty-four hours.

Marvell so stresses the young person she still possess and his program to

salvage them. He talks about her vernal chromaticity and the forenoon ( of life /

young person ) freshness to remind her what she needs to salvage from the imposing clasp

of her grave. He gets really aggressive and speeds up the metre to add

consequence and urgency to his supplications. Then he talks about birds of quarry,

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speed, and devouring to truly writhe the proverbial knife and to

convince her. After adoring her organic structure for ages and wading through

insinuation, he says allow us turn over all our strength and all our sugariness

into one ball and says he wants to pass the remainder of clip with her

doing the Sun tally.

Although the message in this verse form is cosmopolitan, throughout clip,

Marvell & # 8217 ; s methods are alone for his clip. The fact that he used decease

to carry a less than eager adult female is non new. The manner he does it,

is. Harmonizing to Paul Brians, from the English Department at

Washington State University, Marvell & # 8217 ; s

imagination of decease is so powerful, that the verse form transcends

the ready-made & # 8216 ; lines & # 8217 ; of more frivolous authors to go a

stirring speculation on the importance of life to the full

during the brief span allotted us ( Brians ) .

Andrew Marvell tries in this carpe diem verse form, & # 8220 ; To His Coy

Mistress, & # 8221 ; to utilize clip and symbols to convert her to prehend the twenty-four hours.

He uses the river, the worm and many direct mentions to clip to

show the urgency of the state of affairs. He so says that his love is

vegetable and that this demure kept woman is the lone 1 that can prolong

this life love. Then he threatens decease, gets aggressive, and shows

her that her young person is fugitive, and that if she does non alter, she

will be suffering.

Brians, Paul. & # 8220 ; Study Guide for Classic English Love Poems, & # 8221 ; Paul

Brians & # 8217 ; Homepage. n. pag. On-line. Internet. 3 Sept. 1996. Available:

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.wsu.edu:8000/~/love-in-the-arts/classic_english_love-

poems.html