english5

In this lesson we began studying our 2cnd Christina Rossetti poem called Cousin Kate. This poem was interesting as it was about the gender inequalities in the time she was living in and how women were unfairly judged. The poem was about a woman who met a rich man a believed she was in love with him and had sex with him despite not being married. At the time this was considered sinful. The man she loves uses her and leaves her for her more virtuous cousin Kate, who is a virgin and is considered more beautiful and pure. However the poet leads you to believe that Kate cannot have children, the one thing which the narrator does possess of his. There is a sense of pride yet shame from the narrator, who is seen as unpure to the other people in the poem. Rossetti wants the reader to feel as though the narrator has been victimised and interestingly gives a negative image of her cousin Kate, by showing her as shallow, but continues her theme of men being evil and corrupting women.