The Seduction and Cousin Kate was written in the 20th Century. The two poems talk about the consequences of being seduced. In Cousin Kate, It is about a young cottage maiden who falls pregnant by a man who is the ‘Lord of the manor’. And then whilst the maiden is pregnant the man plans to marry the girls cousin who is Kate.
The male in the first poem thinks of her as a joke. He is willing to seduce the girl and then dump her. He is making her drink alcohol and then the more she drinks, the more attracted she gets to the boy. He later mutters ‘you little slag’, because she was drunk and nervous. In this poem there is nothing romantic, because the boy talks about football rather than romance. I know this because in the text it says “He’d told her about football; Sammy Lee and Ian Rush”.
The way he thinks of her, shows his disrespect. He took her to Birkenhead docks to have an intercourse with her; she drinks alcohol and falls in love with the man.
She is not aware of what she is doing. She ends up getting pregnant. He was talking about football which is not a romantic conversation.
When he bought her more drinks she fell in love with his eyes. I know this because it describes them. For example “Eyes blue as iodine”.
In the post 20th poem the male treats the girl disrespectfully. It says “With the fingers that stroked her neck and thighs, the kisses that tasted of nicotine”. The boy isn’t bothered about the girl’s feelings, and the girl doesn’t even take any action such as moving him away from her. The relationship is not good either because the boy is just doing anything and is in a rush.
The consequences of being seduced can be dangerous because it can get you pregnant, even can get you killed and can be disrespectful because if someone keeps on buying you drinks they can take disadvantage because “As he brought her more drinks, so she fell in love”. The girl doesn’t know what she is doing as she is drunk, which for the man makes her easy to seduce.
Society treats the lady because the lady wants no one to know that she is pregnant. I know this because “Better to starve yourself, like a sick precocious child. Than to walk through town with a belly huge and ripe and better now, to turn away, move away, fade away. Than to have the neighbours whisper that ‘you always look the type”.
The language and techniques used in the poem that the poet uses adjectives, couplets and metaphors. I Know this because in the text it contains- “All Wide, Blue Eyes”, “Green as a septic wound” “locked darkness of her room”. The techniques the writer used are that she didn’t make the poem have a good positive ending. The writer made the girl into a lonely and abandoned person.
The setting was set at a house. There was a party in the house, and a man came up to this girl and partied with her. He got her drunk, by buying her drinks. He did this so he could get advantage of her. After when she gets drunk the man takes to Birkenhead Docks into a foul smelling, dirty place and has sexual intercourse with her. After a few months she ends up pregnant, the man abandons her and she is left all alone. The girl’s life has also been ruined as she has got pregnant at a young age. As she is 16 years of age she should do normal things a teenager would do, like spend time with friends and having fun. “For where now, was the summer of her sixteenth year, “We were in the photographs of the summer day trips to Blackpool, jumping on all the rides.”
As a Result, in the poem ‘The Seduction’, the girl reads teen magazines and reads about relationships on boys/girls and your relation should last for a long time. She decides to follow what the magazine tells her and it all ends up into a nightmare, because she just ends up getting pregnant at Birkenhead docks whilst she is drunk. A poem or even a story normally ends in a happy way but this ends up being all wrong and she is feeling bad about the situation.
