Analysis Of A Valediction Forbidding Mourning By John Donne

Louise Halfe’s “Body Politics” challenges the qualities and behaviour of the idealized feminine woman by contrasting the stereotypical “city woman” with a more masculine “real woman.” The poem’s speaker describes her mother’s opinion of what it means to be a real woman, which is seen through “Mama said.” Throughout the poem, the speaker uses vivid imagery to create a stark contrast between the idealized feminine “city woman” and a “real woman” who does not conform to the feminine gender norm. To begin with, the title of the poem itself can be viewed as an obvious critique of the feminine ideal. By definition a body politic is a group of people “considered as a collective unit” (Merriam-Webster). This is significant because in Butler’s theory, she emphasizes that a person’s gender can vary depending on a given situation, and therefore women cannot be grouped together and defined exclusively by their feminine qualities. Instead, she argues that women should be viewed as individuals capable of possessing both masculine and feminine behaviour. This belief relates directly to the poem’s title, as Halfe is clearly making a statement on the manner in which patriarchal societies expect women to conform to a singular feminine ideal. Moreover, it illustrates how women’s bodies become a political site for the masculinist culture to impose feminine gender on. With consideration to the title’s reference to a homogeneous group of women, it is interesting that stanzas two through four all

Ever since the days of World War I, women have been seen as second rate to men. They had to live up to many social standards that men didn’t have to and had strict guidelines on how to live their lives. This all changed when modernism deliberately tried to break away from Victorian Era standards in which women were subjugated to a lot more scrutiny. Ezra Pound, who was a large figure in the modernist movement, captured the spirit of the era in his famous line “Make it new!” Consequently, many writers started to experiment with many different and wild writing styles, which led to the short stories and poems we have today. The stories The Wife of His Youth and Mrs. Spring Fragrance were all written in this era of modernism. While they are written in a more traditional style of writing, both these stories have strong implications on feminism from the viewpoints of both male and female writers.

She was a mother, a moral and political philosopher, a writer, and a feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft was the ideal image of what represented the push towards modern feminism. Some may even consider her as the founding mother of modern feminism itself. Much of Wollstonecraft’s literature is influenced by her own life experiences. In 1785, Wollstonecraft took on an employment opportunity as a governess. While spending most of her time there, she had a moment of epiphany where she realized that she was not suited for domestic work. Soon after, she returned to London and became a translator and wrote for a well-known publisher and discovered her love of writing. Eventually, years later she was then able to publish her most notable work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is still a very popular book which can be seen as a guide to becoming a better citizen and understanding feminism in a critical context. This essay will argue that Mary Wollstonecraft is still relevant to the feminist cause today as her views portrayed in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman are still relatable to many of the feminist issues that currently exist around the world. This essay will do so by comparing how her views in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman can still be used as guiding principles to tackle feminist matters.

Feminism has been an explored topic since the early 19th century and has remained an important conversation in our society still today. At the time when Roxanne Gay was approaching this topic within her collection of essays, there were some major feminist triumphs occurring. 2014 was a time where Rape on college campuses was finally announced a national issue. In 2003, there were just 74 women in congress, yet 2014 was the year where we finally hit 100 women in congress. With all of the support and the successes of feminism at this time, it was crucial that Roxanne Gay discuss the way in which she fully supports the feminist movement, while staying true to herself. In "Why I am a Bad Feminist," Roxane Gay colloquially portrays how she imperfectly performs feminism in her daily life and how to deal with the constant struggle of trying to achieve "ideal" feminism while also being human. Gay touches on the fact that as a society, we place a high degree of pressure on women to be perfect. Whether the perfection lies in their looks, actions, or personality traits, women are constantly held to unrealistic standards. Gay effortlessly sheds light on this situation using rhetorical strategies to describe how she does not meet these standards. These rhetorical strategies include imagery, to create a picture of what she is saying, as well as a strong use of ethos and pathos, revealed throughout her essay. Instead of being ashamed she shares how to embrace her inconsistencies while still trying to be a feminist and role model.

Patriarchal culture has dominated society throughout history. Males have control in many aspects of life and women have continued to fight for equal rights in society. There are many ways women have contributed to the fight for equality; some more physical and other less abrasive. Education and Literature gave the voice to a few women in a male-centered world. Poet Lady Mary Wroth captures the injustices experienced by women in the feminine narrative of Sonnet 9 from her collection of sonnets, songs, and lyrics entitled 'Pamphilia to Amphilantus. In this poem, Wroth explores the thoughts of elite women in the 1700s and uses aspects of her own cultural and historic circumstance to convey the theme of a religious patriarchal society.

During the early 1900s till now, women have been discriminated against and have been battling for equal rights in the United States. In 1960s America, the feminist movement was growing rapidly, bringing out influential women and protesters who were starting to get noticed by the majority of the population. One of those influential women, author Adrienne Rich, published an essay that talks about how women are treated differently. In the essay, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as a Re-vision”, Rich argues that a stereotypical and prejudiced male society represses women. She demonstrates these views through the use of literary history, her personal experience towards women’s discrimination, and the potential women have to

Love can be quite a difficult topic to write about, expressing one’s intimate and innermost emotions requires a great level of dedication and honesty. If done correctly, the outcome is truly stunning. John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and Katherine Philips’s “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” are two masterpieces of this genre. These poems depict the concept of true love so meticulously that the reader cannot help but envy the relationships presented. Perhaps the reason that these works are so effective is due to the fact that they are incredibly similar to each other. Although some differences are present when it comes to structure and gender concerns, the poems share the same theme of love on a spiritual level and show many parallels in meaning.

Akin to intersectional romance fiction, poetry is equivalently as radical. Poetry magnifies the significance of language as a revolutionary tool, one that liberates women and cultivates an environment in which women are free to address their aspirations and anxieties while condemning the ideals of a society that operates under the canons of male chauvinism. In a collection of letters published as a tribute to the late Audre Lorde in Off Our Backs, a feminist newspaper journal written for women by women, one anonymous contributor discusses how Lorde “encourages all women to find their own means of expression, their own poetry to value and to use” (Tyler 32) in her piece “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”. In the piece, Lorde discusses how for women, poetry is not a nonessential indulgence, as Caucasian men throughout history have suggested through how they render poetry as an opportunity to “cover [a] desperate wish for imagination without insight” (Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” 36). Lorde contends that poetry is a “vital necessity of [the] existence” (Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” 36) of women because it establishes the infrastructure on which women “predicate [their] hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action” (Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” 36). Lorde’s text motivates women to exercise “the power of the word, a freedom for women greatly feared by…patriarchal society” (Tyler 32). Lorde states the poetry

The Romantic Period built an environment where women were painted with flowery diction (Wollstonecraft, 216) and were incapable of independence. The Rights of Woman became a crucial topic, particularly in poetry which allowed women the freedom of expression. Accordingly, during the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women writers did not need the prop of their male contemporaries like suggested. Evidently, women were able, successful, and professional writers in their own right. In fact, women often influenced male writers (Dustin, 42). Both Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Letitia Barbauld are evidence that women did not need to rely on their male peers to become successful poets. Consequently, many poets took inspiration from them (Dustin, 32). In The Rights of Woman and Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Anna Letitia Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft had contrasting ideas. Barbauld’s The Rights of Woman was a documented reaction towards Wollstonecraft’s extremely controversial Vindication. Henceforth, both indicate a separate message for the Rights of the Woman. Assumedly, Barbauld misinterpreted Wollstonecraft and readings of The Rights of Woman in the twenty-first century appear antifeminist as a result.

The physical body has been seen as many things both positive and negative. It can be thought of as the temple which houses the soul or can be seen as entrapping, like a cage of flesh. More often it seems that the body, especially women’s bodies, are looked at in more complicated ways than the bodies of men. As I grew up, it began to feel more and more like my body, and the bodies of other women, did not actually belong to us like we believed. Through my Women’s Studies class I have gained more knowledge on the body as a political object. In this essay I will examine six different articles with the similar theme of women’s bodies, the expression of those bodies and how by using feminism as a political standpoint they gain power and ownership of their bodies.

However, despite gender equality movements in the late 1960s (Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2015), mass media producers were still largely male-dominated when Shange was writing her poetry, and hence often sought to maintain the ‘old ways’ of stigma and marginalisation, perpetuating the belief that domestic violence was the woman’s fault, and victims who chose to speak up should be feared (White Ribbon Australia, 2014). Shange detested this notion, using the power of poetry to highlight the absurdity of this opinion and underline the media’s gross misuse of their power to influence public opinion. In her poem, With No Immediate Cause, Shange selectively uses so-called ‘pleasant’ words to describe issues that are far it, serving to confront and disturb readers. The phrase “hot water… / decorate[s] her body” is one such case, the incongruent use of the word “decorate” evoking a sense of uneasiness and disgust. In this way, Shange highlights the illogicality of the media’s sanitisation of the issue, reminding us that domestic violence will never be ‘pretty’, no matter how much one tries to sugar-coat it. A lack of punctuation is also used to emphasise this reality, as Shange describes her response to a recent news article, concerned that domestic violence victims may start to reciprocate: “i spit up i vomit i am screaming”. The lack of commas – or any kind of pacing at all – demonstrates the immediacy of the issue, prompting us to reconsider the realities facing women in the 1970s compared to the media’s representation. Her challenge to mass media producers is also evident in her choreopoem, “sorry”, in which Shange highlights the reality of ‘victim-blaming’. Through repetition of the words “on purpose” – “i loved you on purpose / i was open on purpose” – Shange’s sarcastic conformity to the dominant societal attitude at the time that the victim ‘should have

Emily Dickinson and Philip Larkin both explore power and powerlessness through their poetry, as they both present a power imbalance in the relationship between two individuals. Dickinson explores the position of woman in the 19th century to present the imbalance of power between men and women, an example of this is ‘My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun’, as one interpretation of the poem is the idea of unlocked potential in women. The poem illustrates the relationship between a gun and its owner, and presents the idea of dependency which slowly develops into the gun’s desperate need for its owner. During the 1800’s there was a stigma towards women that were unmarried at a certain age. Dickinson’s view towards the assumed role of women is exemplified

Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This is the time when the first wave of feminism in the United States hit. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first women’s rights convention - and the emergence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s American Equal Rights Association in the middle of the 19th century are among some of the noteable events that sparked this movement in literature. Women across America were inspired by the changing of the times, and that is reflected in many American female authors’ writings.

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” by John Donne explores love through the ideas of assurance and separation. Donne uses vivid imagery to impart his moral themes on his audience. A truer, more refined love, Donne explains comes from a connection at the mind, the joining of two souls as one. Physical presence is irrelevant if a true marriage of the minds has occurred, joining a pair of lovers’ souls eternally.

The society always queries about the role of women and for centuries, they have struggled to find their place in a world that is predominantly male oriented. The treatment of women was remarkably negative; they were expected to stay home and fulfil the domestic duties. Literature of that time embodies and mirrors social issues of women in society (Lecture on the Puritans). But, slowly and gradually, situation being changed: “During the first half of the 19th century, women 's roles in society evolved in the areas of occupational, moral, and social reform. Through efforts such as factory movements, social reform, and women 's rights, their aims were realized and foundations for further reform were established” (Lauter 1406). Feminist poets like Emily Dickinson and Anne Bradstreet talked substantially about feminism in different lights in the past two centuries. They were very vocal and assertive about their rights and the ‘rights for women’ in general. While they might have been successful at making a good attempt to obliterate gender biases but still there are lot of disparities between the two genders. Nevertheless, their poetry reflects a deep angst.