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To His Coy Mistress And Hamlet Analysis

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Every character has a certain ratio of selfless and selfish love amongst their selves and the ratio is difficult to balance which can explain some of the actions of key characters. In the Greek language, selfish love is known as Philautia and the word Agape represents selfless love. Agape is a love extended to all people, whether it is friends and family or complete strangers. Philautia is an unhealthy version of love associated with narcissism; it seeks to please oneself and focuses on personal gains. Each individual faces the contrasting desires of these two forms of love and have the choice of being overall selfish or selfless. In the literary works of Frankenstein, “To His Coy Mistress”, and Hamlet the characters all experience this and …show more content…

In the first stanza the speaker appears to have a selfless and cherishing love for the mistress. However, in the last two stanzas it is evident that the speaker’s selfishness takes over when he says, “Times winged chariot hurrying near/ and yonder all before us lie/ deserts of vast eternity. /Thy beauty shall no more be found” (Marvell 22-25). This illustrates his self-seeking nature because he is concerned about the passage of time making her no longer youthful and appealing to him. Furthermore, the speaker continues on to say that when she dies, “then worms shall try/ that long preserved virginity/ and your quaint honour turn to dust/ and into ashes all my lust” (Marvell 27-30). The speaker is telling the mistress that if she will not do the things he wants her to do then she will die a virgin with the worms and other insects encompassing her body. This is the speakers selfish and lustful attempt to pursued and insult the mistress until she gives into him. The man allows his selfish desires to consume him and this drives him to talk to the woman in a demeaning manner in order to get what he wants. In addition to self-seeking love driving the speaker to become uncontrollable lustful in the poem, there is also contrasting feeling of selflessness and selfishness exemplified in

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