Evaluations of Literature, Essay Example

The theme of courtship has intrigued writers and readers throughout the centuries. Traditional literature surrounding the theme often portrayed courtship as a pleasant and desirable action. Modern literature, on the other hand, often highlights some of the dangers of courting. While the modern accounts of courtship are edgier, the more basic and traditional approach to accounting for courtship is more pleasing to the ear and to the heart.

Christopher Marlowe’s Poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love(Palgrave, 1875) and Joyce Carol Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?(Oates, 2007) Both center on a theme of courtship. Both are tales of a man trying to woo his prospective lover. Yet one is a happy-go-lucky account and the other is overshadowed by elements of fear and suspense. Marlowe’s poem captures the beauty of nature and innocence, while Oates’s work captures elements of risky city life, the stark rebelliousness of teenage living and the danger of looking for love in the wrong places.

Marlowe develops his story from only one perspective. His audience can see only the words of the shepherd himself. The shepherd offers his lover a proposal. “Come live with me,” he implores, “and be my love.”(Palgrave, 1875, p. 1) He then develops his story by having the shepherd present his lover with a list of things he can offer her, including the following: beds of roses, a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle, A gown made of the finest wool, Fair lined slippers with golden buckles, a belt of straw and ivy buds, coral clasps, amber studs, silver dishes and an ivory table. In addition to these material things, he promises her that shepherds will dance and sing for her delight and that he will sit with her on the rocks and listen to birds sing with her(Palgrave, 1875, p. 1).

The shepherd’s words are beautiful and imaginative, bold and lyrical. The audience is treated to as much beauty as the Shepherd’s lover. Yet his offers are simple. Most of what he says he will give his love are things found in nature. They are light and airy, rather than binding or restrictive. The clothing and materials he promises his lover are the sort one might expect faeries to enjoy.

All of the things the shepherd mentions are things meant to make his lover happy. If she chooses to be with him, he will give her all of them. He asks for nothing except for her love and companionship in return. This is the traditional form of courtship.  Traditionally, a man who loves a woman asks her (or her father) for her love and then gives an account of what he is prepared to offer for it. His tone is not at all forceful, rather, he presents his lover with a prospect and, at the end, he allows her to make a choice. “If,” he says, these things move her heart, she should come live with him and be his love(Palgrave, 1875, p. 1).

Marlowe’s poem is developed in the way traditional courtship was developed. Men would obtain marriages and affection by confessing their love, either to a woman or her father and then offer the lady or her father gifts to show that they were capable of caring for her. Marlowe has his shepherd do just this. His use of poetry makes the offer prettier and more romantic than a simple trade. It makes the shepherd’s offer more like a song and compliments the shepherd’s description of beauties very well. There is nothing at all unpleasant about the shepherd’s proposal.

Oates’s suitor, Arnold Friend starts out his speech in a similar manner to Marlowe’s shepherd. He tells his prospective lover, Connie, to come drive with him. Yet in other ways, he is very different. Friend is not lyrical at all. His speech is awkward and childish, rather than lyrical. Rather than trying to impress Connie with poetry, he tries to impress her by acting younger than he is and by adopting what he believes is the language of the teenagers of the time. Connie notes, however, that many of his phrases are no longer used by the kids she knows. Friend’s attempt to be suave, then, falls short(Oates, 2007).

Friend’s offers are more crude and self-centered than designed for Connie’s pleasure. He does not speak of beautiful things that he can give to his lover, but instead focuses on his own preferences and what she can give him. He focuses particularly on her blonde hair, blue eyes and thin figure. Friend, with his self-centered attitude and forceful demeanor, turns courtship into something unpleasant.

It gets worse. Connie, upon realizing how old he is and how old Friend’s forty-year-old friend is, becomes afraid. She turns down Friend’s offer to “go for a ride,” saying that she has things to do. Friend replies that he knows she doesn’t and also that he knows her family is gone. He tells her that he won’t come inside her house, as long as she leaves the telephone alone. His friend begins offering to pull the telephone out for him. At this point, Connie becomes very scared and Friend’s courtship becomes not only unpleasant but dangerous(Oates, 2007, p. 1).

Connie tries once to use the telephone, but through manipulative language, Friend convinces her to put it down. He tells her that she belongs with him and that she is meant to be his lover. He also begins hinting that he will harm her family if she doesn’t follow his wishes. Connie, then, begins to break down. At this point, Friend’s courtship is not just dangerous, it is destructive. Finally, Friend manages to convince Connie to step outside. But even when he wins her over, he doesn’t seem to appreciate her. He calls her his “sweet blue eyed girl,” when, indeed, her eyes are brown(Oates, 2007, p. 2).

Yet, despite the fact that Friend is not kind to her, doesn’t know her well, and doesn’t truly appreciate her, Connie walks out the door. She steps toward a vast stretch of land. Indeed, Oates describes the following:

So much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.(Oates, 2007, p. 2)

There is beauty in this idea. Connie, throughout the story, seems to long for freedom. She is unhappy in her home and often seeks thrills by escaping to movies and drive-ins. Here, it looks as if she has actually found freedom. Yet if one knows that Oates’s story is inspired by the murder of  fifteen-year-old Alleen Rowe,  it is not a pleasant picture at all. Oates is speaking of Connie’s subsequent murder and desert burial(Time Magazine, 1965). It is a dark prospect indeed.

The courtship of Arnold Friend, unlike the courtship of Marlowe’s shepherd, is awkward, ugly and dangerous. There is no traditional talk of birds and flowers. Friend focuses only on his own physical desires and he talks Connie into fulfilling them, even though she seems to know it will mean her death. Oates writes in prose, rather than with poetry. Her intent is not to show beauty, but danger. And such a warning may well be necessary in modern times.

By using a short story as a sort of warning, Oates changes the genre, by tying the lessons of fiction to reality. She also uses it to show how different modern day courtship is from the traditional view. No longer must a man write a woman he loves an ode. He does not need to offer her flowers or pretty things. Women are now liberated. They are expected to be as bold as men and just as physically aware. Men can speak in plain language about their desires and women are often expected to be just as blunt.

In some ways, this has made courtship easier. But it has also made it, sometimes, uglier. Women today might be expected to respond favorably to proposals like Arnold Friend’s. After all, he is older, has a car and is independent. Meanwhile, someone like Marlowe’s shepherd might be laughed at. Few people speak in the flowery sort of language Marlowe’s shepherd employs. A man who offered to make a woman a cap of flowers might well be made fun of. Oates’s work shows this de-romanticization of love.

In conclusion, Oates’s work might be more useful than Marlowe’s. Marlowe’s offers no insight as to how a woman ought to act or what will happen if she does not resist a lover’s pleas. Oates’s work, meanwhile, shows how women can be drawn into the words of a manipulative courter, even when their first inclination is to resist it. On the other hand, Marlowe’s work is much more enjoyable. It helps soothe the mind and the heart with descriptions of the things that are lovely in life.

Works Cited

Oates, J. C. (2007, July 12). Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page: http://www.usfca.edu/~southerr/works/wgoing/text.html

Palgrave, F. T. (1875). The golden treasury of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language. London: Macmillan.

Time Magazine. (1965, November 26). Crime: Secrets in the Sand. Retrieved March 13http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,834699,00.html, 2010, from Time Online.