Sex Without Love Poem Analysis

695 Words2 Pages

In the poem "To his Coy Mistress" Andrew Marvell tells a subtle and valid argument as to why women should fall in love with him. He attempts this through form and imagery and through manipulatative reasoning. Marvell, a well-known politician, held office in Cromwell's government and represented Hull to Paraliament during the Restoration. Sharon Olds' poem "Sex without Love," uses imagery to question how sex is fullfilling without love. Sharon was born in San Francisco on Novemeber 19, 1942. She earned a Bachelor's Degree at Stanford University and a PhD at Columbia University. The first section lines 1-20 the speaker explains that time is running out and that is why he is rushing to find love and respect. The man tries to sweet talk and win The speaker uses all these harsh lines and puns to scare her into thinking that if she does not yield to his wishes that she will become nothing but dust and be decomposed by worms. Marvell's speaker was selfish and did not care what the woman wanted. He only wanted his own pleaseure. Marvell keeps the same tone throughout. The speaker says together they can conquer the way of life and live happy, but these are all of his thoughts and none of what the mistress thinks. She is silent and her thoughts are not heard. All the speaker wants is sexual gratification and he sees nothing but that. In the poem, "Sex without Love" Olds' immediately grabs the reader's attention with a question. After that first line, Olds' uses ironic phrases which shows a disapproving tone, because she does not believe in sex without love. She writes "Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice" which signifies that sex without love is cold. (Lines 1-3). She also talks about undesired childbirth in her poem. By having sex without the person you love can cause troubles by having an undesired child and then the child will also suffer throughout his/her's

Open Document