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Compare And Contrast ‘Cousin Kate’ By Christina Rossetti With ‘The Seduction’ By Eileen Mcauley.

For my coursework I am comparing the poem ‘Cousin Kate’ by Christina Rossetti with ‘The Seduction’ by Eileen McAuley. Both these poems share similar storylines and themes. They both talk about how the females are lured into a false sense of reality and promises by men they think feel the same way. However, both men betray females after using them for their sexual gratification without regards for the lives they are damaging. Both poems are narratives, meaning they tell a story in verse.

Throughout social history women have been regarded as the inferior of the two sexes. Uneducated and unvoiced, women seldom strayed from the expectations that society had put upon them. Men being the primary breadwinners, women were to cater for their husband and to take care of the house. This custom had been dominant one hundred and forty years ago. Only recently have women been ‘allowed’ freedom. At the time that ‘The Seduction’ was set in, young girls attending concerts, parties having boyfriends etc were common and so the role of women had changed dramatically since ‘Cousin Kate’. Although, love and romance, however many ideas people had of them, had pretty much remained unchanged. Women still wanted to find the perfect man to settle down (yet the ways in this was achieved had changed dramatically as seen in the difference of attitudes between the lord and the boy towards their respective ‘targets’).

The idea of love and romance had not been as open a subject as it has been the past few decades. At the time that ‘Cousin Kate’ was written (1860) the subject of love had been that a young woman was to marry to a man with money and status as a means of advancement in her life. This is seen in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen (a dominant novelist at the time) where the central character, Elizabeth, is urged by her mother to marry the wealthy Mr Darcy.

However, the idea of pre-marital sex was seen as taboo and any women (men were generally excused as seen in ‘Cousin...