Comparison of Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti and The Seduction by Eileen McAuley

“Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I bought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died;

"It was my folly! I have said it. But up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one!" Chapter 4, 71

falls in love with a great lord (a rich and powerful man), but then he

In Cousin Kate the poet presents the reader with the idea that women have many expectations in life and are governed by men, giving them no real freedom, and that to become truly happy one must break away from social expectations. Personally I believe this poem presents Rossetti with a stage where she can speak of her resentment at the power men have and the weaknesses and few liberties that women have in the Victorian period; as in the end she takes sympathy for Cousin Kate who appears to have everything, because she must live under the order of her husband.

Christian Rossetti utilizes a unique insight into her works of ‘Maude Clare’, ‘Goblin Market’ and ‘Amor Mundi’ to express the struggle of religious values of the Victorian era. Throughout the three passages Rossetti uses devices such as alliteration, repetition and symbolism in order to express sentiment.

Aubrey’s mum turned up and told Aubrey that she didn’t come because some days are too hard

Children, Marriage and Love are the three main factors of the two short stories, “A Sorrowful Woman” by Gail Godwin, and “A Secret Sorrow” by Karen van der Zee. Two relationships at risk because of children. Neither of them know what to do but try to find solutions to solve their problems. They end up having different outcomes.

“My body, but for your blood, is barren of worth; And tis I have asked for this folly not fit for a King.”

teenage girl who meets a boy at a party, they get on well and leave

while or was it all just a game to him? He used her and made her

Between 1965 and 1988 Gilbert Paul Jordan was linked to the murders of ten women of aboriginal dissent. Marie Clements’ play The Unnatural and Accidental Women puts a fictional account to the realistic murders of the aboriginal women in Vancouver. During the original murders the large misunderstanding and misinterpretation around aboriginal culture caused the murders of the women to be ignored, the women themselves to be viewed as invisible, or the murders to be deemed not important or ‘accidental’. In her play Clements recreates the original murders of the ‘boozing barber’, Gilbert Paul Jordan, however in the play she creates an identity for the murdered women that was not shown by the media, police or culture in Vancouver at the time of the original murders.

only way this is possible is to kill her. This occurs to him after he

This essay will focus on the short story by Kate Chopin and its use of symbols, setting and characters. Desiree’s baby was perhaps one of the best stories I’ve ever read. Analyzing it was not easy at all. Its use of symbols was very hard to comprehend. At first, it doesn’t make sense. But as you think critically, all the symbols, and setting and the characters in this literature plunge together in one amazing story.

but has a 'gift' that 'Cousin Kate' is not likely to get; a son. The

Women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had specific roles determined by the males who were dominant in their society. Women began to write stories which told their gender roles in that era. The authors of these stories lived in this time period and their stories reflect a lot of the traditional roles that were expected of them. The author’s purposes, were to tell about how marriage imprisoned women in this period of time. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s stories provide examples of the gender roles. Their reasoning of writing these stories was to call on women of this era to learn how to empower themselves in this society.