Resistant Reading - Textual Example

Textual Example

By way of illustration, consider Andrew Marvell's poem To His Coy Mistress.

A resistant reading may develop from an alternative reading, pointing out how the representation of gender in the poem furthers the notion of gender as binary oppositions (e.g. male is active, female is passive; male is powerful, female is marginalized) and, as such, will be read by readers who share feminist views of the world gender inequality and discrimination against women. For example, Marvell's representation of heterosexuality in the poem may be read as being exploitative, based as it is on the persona psychologically terrorizing the woman. Marvell depicts his persona as attempting to have the woman submit as a result of the fear he seeks to instill within her; Marvell's vivid and confronting imagery is most significant and not accidental:

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song: then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity...