A Comparison of Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress and Thomas Hardys

A Comparison of Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress and Thomas Hardy's The Ruined Maid In this essay I will look at the two poems, explore what the poems are about, look at the language and images used in them by the writers and then compare the two. "The ruined maid" by Thomas Hardy is a conversation between two women; "Melia", the ruined maid herself and another lady, her friend of whom she used to know when she lived in need. Melia's friend brings up all different points about Melia that have changed, for example the way she looks, 'now you've gay bracelets' and acts, 'you'd sigh and you'd sock' but Melia just says a few simple words in reply. 'To his coy mistress' by Andrew Marvell is a one sided argument and is about a man trying to persuade his mistress to lose her virginity with him before her looks and beauty start to go, as she gets older. He tries to persuade her to have sex with him by using flattery, humour and frightening, almost blackmailing her by describing different shocking images. Hardy writes 'The ruined maid' in an unusual way, one of which is not usually heard of, he writes it as if it was an actual informal conversation between two women. He creates this by using various amounts of punctuation; he uses speech marks throughout the poem, uses dashes to separate the two different people?s speech, and uses question marks, explanation marks and further speech marks in all the appropriate places, which all help to give the effect of the conversation happening, from the first line to the last and encourages the reader to think of it more as a dialogue when reading it. 'Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!'- ?Some polish is gained with one?s ruin,? said she? is an e... ...gh it is obvious that she does not want to, as she would have known that it wasn?t the best thing to do, that her marital status would have been in ruins, her reputation in tatters. However in ?The ruined maid? Melia had already have had sex and although her old life and the only way she knew was gone, she had gained a much better one, where although she is no longer of any marital value, she appears (unless it is just a cover) to be more polished and seems happier in general life. If you look at it in one way, ?The ruined maid? could be what could happen to the mistress in ?To his coy mistress?. It could be what happens to her if she goes through with the man?s proposal so in conclusion, although the poems tell the tales of two different stories, they could easily be part of the same one, where ?The ruined maid? follows on from ?To his coy mistress?. A Comparison of Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress and Thomas Hardy's A Comparison of Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress and Thomas Hardy's The Ruined Maid In this essay I will look at the two poems, explore what the poems are about, look at the language and images used in them by the writers and then compare the two. "The ruined maid" by Thomas Hardy is a conversation between two women; "Melia", the ruined maid herself and another lady, her friend of whom she used to know when she lived in need. Melia's friend brings up all different points about Melia that have changed, for example the way she looks, 'now you've gay bracelets' and acts, 'you'd sigh and you'd sock' but Melia just says a few simple words in reply. 'To his coy mistress' by Andrew Marvell is a one sided argument and is about a man trying to persuade his mistress to lose her virginity with him before her looks and beauty start to go, as she gets older. He tries to persuade her to have sex with him by using flattery, humour and frightening, almost blackmailing her by describing different shocking images. Hardy writes 'The ruined maid' in an unusual way, one of which is not usually heard of, he writes it as if it was an actual informal conversation between two women. He creates this by using various amounts of punctuation; he uses speech marks throughout the poem, uses dashes to separate the two different people?s speech, and uses question marks, explanation marks and further speech marks in all the appropriate places, which all help to give the effect of the conversation happening, from the first line to the last and encourages the reader to think of it more as a dialogue when reading it. 'Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!'- ?Some polish is gained with one?s ruin,? said she? is an e... ...gh it is obvious that she does not want to, as she would have known that it wasn?t the best thing to do, that her marital status would have been in ruins, her reputation in tatters. However in ?The ruined maid? Melia had already have had sex and although her old life and the only way she knew was gone, she had gained a much better one, where although she is no longer of any marital value, she appears (unless it is just a cover) to be more polished and seems happier in general life. If you look at it in one way, ?The ruined maid? could be what could happen to the mistress in ?To his coy mistress?. It could be what happens to her if she goes through with the man?s proposal so in conclusion, although the poems tell the tales of two different stories, they could easily be part of the same one, where ?The ruined maid? follows on from ?To his coy mistress?.