Comparing Fear In Porphyria's Lover And To His Coy Mistress
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Loved ones are kept close to peoples heart, they are the people who will spend the rest of their lives in happiness together. Loosing that bond, because of one reason or another, can be traumatic. Many do not know how to live again afterwards. To have a fear of an emotional situation as described seems rational, although when taken out of proportion, the fear can become haunting and unhealthy. In Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning and To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, both male characters put their love in danger by obsessing over the possibility of loosing love, one to the point of insanity. Many factors that could diminish a relationship, and suddenly become objects of fear once the lover develops such a phobia of loosing a loved…show more content… However, simpler ideas can become more efficient catalysts of fear, such as the common fear of loosing someone because of passing time, not being able to fulfill ones hopes of love in time. All these play a role in the poems, and together make it clear that fear is reasons most daunting enemy. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, the male narrator writes to his lover a poem expressing his bountiful affection to her, and then his fears of loosing her from passing time. The opening two lines accurately describes this: “Had we but world enough and time / This coyness, lady, were no crime” (Andrew Marvell). The narrator describes his fear of loosing his lover to time moving to fast for him to satisfy his needs of love, saying how if the couple had “world enough and time”, or infinite time, they could love. The particular thing that is slowing down their relationship so much is the…show more content… Here the narrator points to time, “[t]ime’s wingèd chariot”, as the source of his fear. Time is chasing him on a metaphorical “wingèd chariot” that is “hurrying near.” What would time want from this man? To take his love: “Thy beauty shall be no more found; / Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song; then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity” (Andrew Marvell). Here is the link between the fear of time and loss of love is made. The male lover describes a loss of love, where the woman's “beauty shall be no more found”, because the woman is dead in a “marble vault.” Once dead, the man cannot take her virginity, but instead the “worms shall try / [t]hat long preserved virginity”, the worms in her grave will take it. These lines tie the themes of the poem together, the male narrator is afraid of time eventually killing his lover before he can marry and take her virginity, and the reason he cannot take the woman's virginity now is because of her “coyness”, and obligation to keep the rules of victorian society and remain a virgin until