Fallen Woman and Cousin Kate

I'm just going to start by saying I signed into YouTube and for some reason it also signed onto blogger with that account so when I published my post I wasn't logged on so it didn't save. I'm now completely re-writing this, and I'm irritated, so please excuse any spelling mistakes this may cause.

In our last lesson, we began by discussing the idea of a fallen women. Our ideas seemed to focus on the idea of a 'fallen woman' being a woman taken out of her prime, usually by a man. He would seduce her, resulting in her being cast out of society or negatively viewed. This led onto a discussion that women had many derogatory terms for sleeping around, such as 'whore' and 'slag', yet men have very few, if any. It may even be seen as a positive for a man to sleep around, and he may be praised for it.

With this idea fresh in our mind, we began to read the poem 'Cousin Kate'. It discussed a 'fallen woman', the narrator, who had been cast out by society due to having sex before marriage. The man she had sex with, however, had no consequences for his actions. He went on to marry the narrator's Cousin Kate. The narrator and Kate were in the exact same position with the man, except Kate got married before having sex. As a result, Kate was seen as 'good and pure' and the narrator was an 'outcast'. However, the narrator believes her love 'was true', whereas Kate's was merely 'writ in sand', only temporary, yet the narrator is still the one negatively seen by society, showing the unfair views of the time.

Despite the narrator seeming like the average 'fallen woman', we learn in the final few stanzas that she is in fact stronger than that. This is due her having a son from her pre-marital sex. This has resulted in her being an outcast and her son is her 'shame', yet he is also her 'pride'. Because of him, she has someone to look after her and someone who makes her proud. This is something Kate doesn't have. Maybe Kate can't have children, as the narrator says that she has 'little doubt you fret', referring to having a child. This shows that despite being an outcast, she has something as a result of it, a child who makes her proud and makes her stronger than the average 'fallen woman'.