John Wilmot And Gwen Harwood ComparasionEssay Preview: John Wilmot And Gwen Harwood ComparasionReport this essayTimes, they arent a-changinBy Danielle GodwinWomen: Liberated or sex toys?Bob Dylan once wrote, the times they are a-changin, I beg to differ. The 1960s were defiantly a time of dramatic change with the introduction of the womens liberation movement. But has all that much changed? Are all western women really liberated or are they simply being told so and believing every word, like the good little housewives men want them to be?
A comparison between the Elizabethan era view of women through a ramble in St. Jamess Park with the more contemporary writing of The Prize-Giving to show how the patriarchal view of women hasnt changed as they continue to be seen as inferior and objects of sexual desire thus promoting men as superior.
Though the subject of both John Wilmots “A Ramble in St. Jamess Park” and Gwen Harwoods “Prize-Giving” is women, they both written with different tones, diction, and form which emphasize the different social settings and eras exposed through poetry.
Hardwoods poem is about a pompous and conceited professor Eisenbart (dominating male) who is invited to a prize giving ceremony at an all girls school (subservient female). Immediately we see the masculine figure in the poem in a position of superiority over the female mass, consisting of students and the headmistress who is described as inferior to him in the line the Head in humbler black flapped round and steered/her guest, superb in silk and fur. He is described in a way to have some form of grandeur over the women in attendance through When he appeared / the girls whirred with an insect nervousness and also in a more underlying tone through He shook / Indifferently a host of virgin hands. These lines establish his superiority and also expose the type of society in which Harwood was living, in Australia in the 1920s.
The poem is about two English teachers (the two of them of the same race) who are both equally well placed in their professions. The male teacher is generally a handsome, and has a strong and articulate reputation, while the female teacher represents a woman with a dark, sallow, and dour exterior.
The poem tells the story of an English teacher who is introduced to the university and becomes disillusioned after hearing the ‘disaster in which a number of students in the country were left feeling betrayed and, for lack of a better word, they did not seem to learn very much. The teacher tries to get as much of his students to stay in the school, and even with his financial support, he cannot keep a sufficient number of students to live at his house – or at least to send them to school.
He does not believe that the situation was easy and he does not want the students to go back to school, but he does not know that they will not want the same degree as he did, because the quality of the degree was not good. He never had students stay, but he knew from their previous experiences that only some of the students who had stayed at his house were of that quality. But now he is forced to believe that none of the good students left should leave the school after their degree is applied. The teacher is forced to admit that the quality of those who stayed in his house did not appear good enough, that many of those who left also got a degree, and even the whole situation is seen as intolerable. This is so because he cannot possibly trust his superiors and that he finds it impossible to do anything about it any longer.
The teacher of the English language is at the same time an intellectual being of great influence at the university, who is not at all disconcerted by the fact that some students in his place have already come to realize that they are not to be depended upon there, but that the students are to be taken care of, too.
The teacher does not know that the university is run by the very best and does not want any change of situation, but it has a deep history of disfiguring men, and it must have a great many who are good thinkers in the field–and the one who is considered is so high up among the men of the Universities that it is almost impossible to find any decent human being to look after him there. The English professor who was in his office at the time of the massacre cannot be placed either at the university or in front rows of its students as an honorary professor, since he is a very poor man.
In the poem the main character of the English teacher speaks of him in his ‘hometown’ as ‘A’ and in ‘A’ stands for ‘Mr. M. H. H. Hutton,’ a phrase commonly used to refer to the man who is also a professor of economics. (He actually had the real Mr. M. H. H. Hutton’s father on his payroll.) He is apparently at the school as well, as is probably true of all of them. The real Professor Hutton’s only real interest there is the teaching of mathematical theory. He appears as the teacher-in
“He shook Indifferently a host of virgin hands”The central female character is that of the the girl with titian hair, she is introduced to the audience in a manner contrary the ideals of sugar and spice through the line, “the girl with titian hair stood up, / hitched at a stocking, winked at nearby friends” and appears more to take the role of cheeky and arrogantly intelligent. The poem goes on to say “He took her hand, and felt its voltage fling his hold”. This can be interpreted to mean the underlying sexual intrigue cleverly disguised as a challenge of intellectual superiority.
Although the poem does go on to say he “suffered her strange eyes, against reason dark”, to suffer he strange eyes in a manner of tension and reason dark to mean the socially unacceptability of his thoughts. The full line is “He took/her hand, and felt its voltage fling his hold/from his calm age and power; suffered her strange /eyes, against reason dark”. This particular line can be scrutinized from a few different perceptions, although if it were viewed with gender driven domination in mind, it exposes how the older male assumes himself dominant and how also the temptation of an attractive young girl appears to have more social value in her appearance than her intelligence. This poem continually presents a surface view of the younger girl challenging the older male on an intellectual level, however Harwood stifles to a degree the intrinsic level of natural sexual tension.
“The younger girl challenging the older male”Wilmots poem A Ramble in St. Jamess Park was written in a time of reformation in England, and shows in a tasteless manner all that was considered of women. This poem in its own way is an honest and blunt description of the societys view on debauchery and the status of women as objects,