Marlowe you are so Screwed (an analysis)

(Warning to the Public: this was done by two innocently -starved individuals)

After our 'critical' analysis, we had came to the conclusion that this poem contains a LOT of frustrations. To cite one instance, the first line is a sexual innuendo or an invitation to sate carnal desires.

"Come live with thee and be my love"

If you analyze it deeper, the Shepherd in this poem doesn't want commitment from the Nymph (whom the Poem is addressed to) rather, he only wants to 'live' with her which can mean a lot of things.

live 1  (lv)

v. lived, liv·ing, lives

v.intr.

1. To be alive; exist.

2. To continue to be alive: lived through a bad accident.

3. To support oneself; subsist: living on rice and fish; lives on a small inheritance.

4. To reside; dwell: lives on a farm.

5. To conduct one's life in a particular manner: lived frugally.

6. To pursue a positive, satisfying existence; enjoy life: those who truly live.

7. To remain in human memory: an event that lives on in our minds.

v.tr.

1. To spend or pass (one's life).

2. To go through; experience: lived a nightmare.

3. To practice in one's life: live one's beliefs.

Exploring further, the Shepherd wants to "live with" the nymph which can also mean that he wants to :

live with

To put up with; resign oneself to

Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/live>

And to submit to his desires and wishes which would probably be his sexual fantasies. To fortify this , we had cite another string of lines in the said poem that denotes the need of the shepherd to have the nymph on his own bed.

"And we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields"

In these lines we can see a series of symbolisms all pertaining to the Female Anatomy. We had always stereotyped ideal women as 'voluptous' in form. For  us, these 'landscapes' (which are mostly curving in form) are pertaining to the various parts of the woman, particularly the curves or the contours  of a woman's body. This idea made us arrive to the conclusion that the shepherd is fantasizing about the nymph's body.

"And we will sit upon rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals."

Next are these lines where we can see a very simple sexual image of the Shepherd having the Nymph for breakfast. To prove this, we had saw the connection of the word 'rocks' to hardness or to put bluntly, the Horniness of an individual and also keeping in mind that the persona in the poem is Male and so we have connected the word 'rock' to the words 'hard' and 'erect' which is a common slang used to describe the arousal of the penis.

"By shallow rivers to whose falls"

This line also shows us another sexual image of the Nymph. The shepherd refers these rivers as the Nymph's genital that overflows when aroused. To simplify this line, the shepherd dreams to feed on these "shallow rivers to whose ( the Nymph's) falls ".

"Melodious birds sing madrigals."

In this line, the Shepherd gives us an implication of  how he beautiful the sound of the Nymph's moaning and his pained grunts would sound together (he used the word 'birds' which can be used for both the Shepherd and the Nymph) is Just like how the madrigal birds sing so beautifully. Plainly, he was indulged to the idea of he and the Nymph 'playing wonderful music together'.

"And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant poises,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs;"

In these stanzas, the shepherd is creating a genuine advertisement that he hopes would woo the Nymph to be 'his love'. Also, these lines tell us of the superficial things he might offer to the Nymph just to have her in his bed BUT this is an outright statement telling us that the Shepherd only wants the Nymph for her body not for love.(We just realized that this statement is slowly inclining to the Feminist Approach :) )

"And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love."

This lines mentioned above had fortified our stand that the Shepherd is Flirting with the Nymph.

"The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:"

We have been speculating what the word' swain' might mean in this context and we have discovered some interesting details about the word's etymology.

Origin: 

before 1150; Middle English swein  servant < Old Norse sveinn  boy,servant; cognate with Old English swān

Pasted from <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swains?fromRef=true&__utma=1.1776430826.1310886572.1310886572.1310886572.1&__utmb=1.1.10.1310886572&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1310886572.1.1.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=allude%20synonyms&__utmv=-&__utmk=250172550>

We are not certain if the Shepherd is pertaining to himself as the' slave' to the Nymph or the Nymph being his handy-dandy sextoy but one thing is certain, the persona in the play wants a slave not an equal partner for life. For short, we can see the persona's repressed desires of having full dominance to the female he is fantasizing about.

"If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love"

These lines may sound romantic for starters but if we get to think deeper, we can tell that this is an OUTRIGHT invitation for sex. There is a bargaining going on in the last line, the word 'delight' can mean a lot of things but we had interpreted that the use of this word actually goes back to those superficial things he was bragging in the earlier lines.

I don't know about you guys but this is our Freudian interpretation. :)

I bet Sigmund Freud would be so proud right now wherever he is.

Kristine Monique Abao

Nadia Theresa Ciocon

BEEN3

Rumpelstiltskin in the light of feminist criticism

Brothers Grimm Rumpelstiltskin Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold."      The king said to the miller, "That is an art which pleases me well, if your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to-morrow to my palace, and I will put her to the test."      And when the girl was brought to him he took her into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning-wheel and a reel, and said, "Now set to work, and if by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die."      Thereupon he himself locked up the room, and left her in it alone. So there sat the poor miller's daughter, and for the life of her could not tell what to do, she had no idea how straw could be spun into gold, and she grew more and more frightened, until at last she began to weep.      But all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, and said, "Good evening, mistress miller, why are you crying so?"      "Alas," answered the girl, "I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it."      "What will you give me," said the manikin, "if I do it for you?"      "My necklace," said the girl.      The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three turns, and the reel was full, then he put another on, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold. <  2  >      By daybreak the king was already there, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart became only more greedy. He had the miller's daughter taken into another room full of straw, which was much larger, and commanded her to spin that also in one night if she valued her life. The girl knew not how to help herself, and was crying, when the door opened again, and the little man appeared, and said, "What will you give me if I spin that straw into gold for you?"      "The ring on my finger," answered the girl.      The little man took the ring, again began to turn the wheel, and by morning had spun all the straw into glittering gold.      The king rejoiced beyond measure at the sight, but still he had not gold enough, and he had the miller's daughter taken into a still larger room full of straw, and said, "You must spin this, too, in the course of this night, but if you succeed, you shall be my wife."      Even if she be a miller's daughter, thought he, I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.      When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?"      "I have nothing left that I could give," answered the girl.      "Then promise me, if you should become queen, to give me your first child."      Who knows whether that will ever happen, thought the miller's daughter, and, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted, and for that he once more spun the straw into gold.      And when the king came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty miller's daughter became a queen. <  3  >      A year after, she brought a beautiful child into the world, and she never gave a thought to the manikin. But suddenly he came into her room, and said, "Now give me what you promised."      The queen was horror-struck, and offered the manikin all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her the child. But the manikin said, "No, something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world."      Then the queen began to lament and cry, so that the manikin pitied her.      "I will give you three days, time," said he, "if by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child."      So the queen thought the whole night of all the names that she had ever heard, and she sent a messenger over the country to inquire, far and wide, for any other names that there might be. When the manikin came the next day, she began with Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, and said all the names she knew, one after another, but to every one the little man said, "That is not my name."      On the second day she had inquiries made in the neighborhood as to the names of the people there, and she repeated to the manikin the most uncommon and curious. Perhaps your name is Shortribs, or Sheepshanks, or Laceleg, but he always answered, "That is not my name."      On the third day the messenger came back again, and said, "I have not been able to find a single new name, but as I came to a high mountain at the end of the forest, where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, there I saw a little house, and before the house a fire was burning, and round about the fire quite a ridiculous little man was jumping, he hopped upon one leg, and shouted -      'To-day I bake, to-morrow brew, <  4  >      the next I'll have the young queen's child.      Ha, glad am I that no one knew      that Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.'"      You may imagine how glad the queen was when she heard the name. And when soon afterwards the little man came in, and asked, "Now, mistress queen, what is my name?"      At first she said, "Is your name Conrad?"      "No."      "Is your name Harry?"      "No."      "Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?"      "The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that," cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.

from http://www.eastoftheweb.com


Reviewing the fairy tale in the Feminist Approach:

  Rumpelstiltskin is an allegorical tale by the Brothers Grimm highlighting the cruelties of patriarchy. That highlights that women are merely possessions to men, and that they can be bought, sold or just something to dispose of. The beginning of the story really shouts out feminine oppression that poor miller sold  his own daughter and even risk her life for his own advancement. He even used such a lie that his daughter can spin straw into gold to convince the king of selling her to him. Another evidence is the king's treatment to the Miller's daughter, that he would kill her if she does not spin gold at dawn. The king even married her, despite her status as a miller's daughter, because of his greed for wealth that the miller's daughter makes. This fairy tale sends out a message about the norms of the genders, that men assume rule and power while the women are merely possessions and second grade human beings.

Nadia Theresa Ciocon BEEN3 Lit. Crit. TTH 1:30-2:30PM