Analysis Essay: Theme of Woman’s Virginity in Poetry

A woman’s virginity is always been an issue either it’s in the 16th century or 19th century. As Marvell Andrew depicts in his poem “ To His Coy Mistress” that a woman is nothing, but a person who’s made to fulfill a man’s sexual needs. However, Marge Piercy represents the same idea of gender-stereotyping via her poem “ Barbie Doll” where a woman was accused of not satisfying society’s requirements of a beautiful girl. Society thinks that a woman should be the most attractive person in the world. Moreover, these two poems were written in two different era’s which gives us a sense that society’s way of seeing a woman, their clothing styles, opportunities for women, and rights to speak for themselves were different. These factors affect women as if she will be able to speak for herself whenever she is harassed and molested, or she will be blamed by society for raising her voice against a rapist. In “ To His Coy Mistress” and “ Barbie Doll” both poems touch upon gender-stereotyping by defining how and what a woman should do with her identity, and sexuality. 

The speaker in his poem “ To His Coy Mistress” describes the ways he sees her as a sexual object as he pretends as if his coy mistress is his property. He sees his coy mistress as a sexual object when mentions in his poem that “A hundred years should go to praise/ thin eyes and on thy forehead Gaze/two hundred to adore each breast/ but thirty thousand to the rest.” A poet tries to convince his coy mistress by giving compliments about her body parts which will be enough to melt her heart and invite her to his bed. He harasses her sexually by naming her body parts that he would love to admire. He insults a woman by naming her body parts and makes her feel uncomfortable about her sexuality. However, He continues to make her feel uncomfortable about her virginity as he addresses “ My vegetable love should grow/vaster than empires, and more slow.” The speaker’s “ vegetable love” is symbolized as a man’s penis and women’s fertility. In his opinion, the man is a person who plants a seed in a women’s womb to grow his vegetables in her fertile land. For him, a woman is someone he can play with whenever he feels like it. As he keeps convincing he tries to assault her by giving a reason why she should lose her virginity with him. 

When his coy mistress keeps silent after all of the methodologies to convince him to lose virginity. Marvell molests his coy mistress by symbolizing worms in his poem. As he states in his poem “ My echoing song than worms shall try/ That long preserved virginity.” He threatens her by making her scared by worms. When a poet refers to worms he says that an undeserving man would take away virginity. He warns her that if she doesn’t lose her virginity with him then she most likely to be eaten by worms. Society thinks the man is always right when he gives his opinion on women’s sexuality. If a woman is protected by a man then she doesn’t have to worry about being molested or harassed by another man. In our society, that’s the reason society believes that a woman should get married at a certain age so her partner can protect her from others. If she doesn’t do that she will live in fear of being raped, molested, and harassed. However, Marge Piercy introduces us to society’s requirements of a perfect woman. 

As Marge Piercy describes that society’s stereotypes made her feel ashamed about her physical appearance. A girl was bullied by society about her physical appearance as if she doesn’t belong to the community. The people had filled hatred in their hearts about that girlchild’s identity and look. She was judged by each and every person because she wasn’t pretty enough to join the girl’s community. In her first stanza, Marge Piercy states that “ And miniature GE stoves and irons/ and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.” The speaker demonstrates that a girlchild is being introduced to plastic toys and beautiful things from their childhood because when she enters her puberty level she will be introducing these things again. These plastic toys represent gender stereotypes between a man and a woman. However, as a girl enters her puberty level she accepts what has been given by society. After accepting her position she being judged upon her look. 

In a community, being beautiful and attractive is as important as oxygen for human beings. A woman will be judged by her looks and tortured She is average beautiful than other women. When she is rejected by the society she tries to change herself and suffers from the pain she would never think she would go through. She fears going in public and show herself because it might hurt her feelings. As sexton states, “I have gone out, a possessed witch/ haunting the black air, braver at night.” In these two lines, he compares a woman with a witch. A witch becomes brave at night or when it’s dark, same with a woman. A woman is strong when it’s dark because she won’t be judged by society at that time. Moreover, Marge Piercy shows a girlchild as a brave girl at first as she tries to lose her weight by exercising and dieting to look beautiful. However, her Classements and society kept passing comments about her looks and broke her emotionally.  After being disregarded by the whole society she cuts her big nose and fat leg to offer society because she feels that’s what they wanted. After her death, everyone sees her as a beautiful lady. As Marge Piercy writes in her poem, “ In the casket displayed on satin she lay/with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on/ a turned-up putty nose/ dressed in a pink and white nightie.” Now when she died she has her make-up on, wearing a nightie, and has a fake nose on to make her look pretty. A nightie is symbolized as a sexual object women wear at night. Nighties represent a beautiful woman showing off some body parts and looking sexy for her partner. A girl feels confident about her looks because after her death society sees her as a beautiful and attractive woman.

As both of the poems were written in two different eras, which tells us that women being judged differently as sexual because of the time difference. The 16th century when Marvell wrote his poem “ To His Coy Mistress” was Queen Elizabeth’s time. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, women wore clothes that cover them from head to toe. Some women wore off-shoulder clothes as it was fashionable at that, but other than that they wore from head-to-toe-covered clothes. Even if they wore covered clothes they were seen as sexual objects because they didn’t have to right to speak for themselves or make their own decision. Women tolerated society’s claims because there were options. However, in 1970 when “ Barbie Doll” was written women wore clothes that covered half their bodies. They had opportunities to work in advertising, women were fighting for their rights and were allowed to make their own decision. I think advertising led women seen as sexual objects. However, women are still seen as sexual objects which we have named harassment, rape, and molestation. Women are still bullied for their appearance and society still makes women feel unconfident about their looks. There are still women who want to report a case against her rapist or a boss, but because she knows that she would face criticism, she just let it go. 

In conclusion, women are, were, and will always be seen as sexual objects because of society’s irrelevant thoughts about women. They treat women in a manner way as for their needs and once their needs are fulfilled they will leave them alone. Women in the past and present are different, but the tag they have given by society isn’t removed yet from them. Society still thinks that a woman is a toy to fulfill all of her man’s needs. Furthermore, women can file a complaint about their sexual harassment which encourages woman’s to raise an against those rapists who tries to rape a woman or see her as a sexual object.