The Sonnet Bites Back: Sex, Spite and Feminist Stirrings in 'I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed' by Edna St Vincent Millay
'I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed' is a poem of pithy wit and charm, yet it is not merely frivolous; the use of the sonnet form by this female writer is also significant at the time of the struggle for equal rights, whilst its language reflects the changing situation and self-image of women.
"Distressed," the emphatic final word of the first line, is a concept often associated with women under the impression that they are passive and helpless; one of Millay's purposes in writing this poem is to prove that they are not, so her use of this word is both deliberate and ironic. The whole first line (and title) is a sarcastic attack on the idea of female inferiority. She says she is "urged" to find a man "fair"; the latter is interesting because it is more often used to describe women and so hints at the role reversal to be uncovered as the poem unfolds, whereas one could question the use of "urged." Society may pressure her to find someone attractive but not in the intensely physical way that she does, so in fact convention would discourage rather than "urge" her; instead she blames her womanhood and her body for pushing her into passion.
"All the needs and notions of my kind" in line two is said with some contempt; a contrast is also drawn between "needs" which are real and urgent (and even sexual) and "notions" which are insubstantial and connected with the assumed vagueness and irrationality of female thinking. Towards the end she also brings in "love," a traditionally feminine sentiment, but then rejects it; she does the same for "pity." Most tellingly of all, the speaker mentions "scorn," that most female of vices. It is ironic that while Millay is fighting against women's reputation for weakness, she is contributing to the other side of their reputation, for being scornful and fickle.
The strongly stressed position of the unusual word "season" at the end of line eleven forces the reader to consider its meaning fully. There are connotations with 'seasoning,' part of the predominantly female activity of cooking which no doubt this modern woman would spurn. It is also loaded with suggestions of time and particularly of former poetic boasts that love does not alter with the seasons, whether they be temporal or in the beloved's beauty. However, this speaker would not indulge in such sentimental devotions; in this poem "season" has more the implication of a lover being retained for a certain period and then discarded for a new one.
A lascivious theme runs throughout the poem: Millay uses the heavily emphasised central couplet of the octave for the particularly salacious, intimate remark:
...feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast
By blaming "the fume of life" for her transgressions, she absolves herself and simultaneously resigns herself to being seduced repeatedly. She admits to having felt a physical "frenzy," though the immediate juxtaposition of this with "insufficient" suggest that her lovers fail to satisfy her sexually as well as intellectually. However, she is also aware of being "undone, possessed:" it is still dangerous for a woman to admit to and act on sexual impulses.
The poet is concerned with struggle of reason against emotion, which appears necessary to her in order that women may prove their intellectual equality to men. For this reason she is angry at her own susceptibility to passion and its tendency to, "clarify the pulse and cloud the mind;" similarly, she speaks of the
...poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain
It would seem that her blood is more "stout" and masculine and her brain feminine, "staggering" having an association with swooning; but this view is overturned when it is considered that "staggering" has another meaning of 'impressive' or 'overwhelming.' In this way she implies that her superior intellect has not been realised by men. "Poor treason" is also an unusual description; the treason is poor because lust is such a trivial, venial thing for her controlled self-image to founder on, poor because it is pitiable, poor because it is a half-hearted sin, typical of a woman.
Because of this self-confessed weakness, the author is keen to assert her uncaring stance elsewhere: her language is objective and disinterested, she uses cold, unromantic words such as "propinquity" and "fume," and she rejects her men unequivocally at the end. She also implies in lines nine, ten and eleven that her lover is not special, and that her desire stems entirely from matters of physiology. "-let me make it plain" is a particularly patronising phrase showing the inferiority of the men to whom it is addressed; the dash also creates a caesura that serves to stress her final point which follows. The speaker appears proud of her ability to be left unemotional by intimate encounters, a traditionally masculine trait; in fact she is better at it than her partners as they want "conversation when we meet again," whereas she rejects them and convention too. It is revealed on closer reading that the apparent feeble-mindedness of the woman is merely a sort of pun on stereotype, as the whole point of this character is that she is nothing like what society expects her to be: she is not chaste, she does not regret being unchaste, nor is she tempted into unchasteness by any higher feeling than lust.
The consonance of "clarify" and "cloud" in line seven joins these opposites, making each necessary for the other's existence; 'cl' is also quite a biting, angry sound, demonstrating that Millay is not happy about these effects on her body. "Distressed" and its rhymes provide strong final sounds, which end the lines effectively and show the strong-willed nature of their author. The repetition of "I" at the beginnings of lines affirms the female voice; the opening "I" instantly disrupts the sonnet's iambic pentameter as it demands emphasis; this adds to the assertion of the woman's identity: she will no longer be an unstressed syllable.
The rhythm deviates in only one other instance due to Millay's need to keep in line with the established rules for sonnets; lines nine, eleven and thirteen all have eleven syllables, allowing these lines to end on unstressed syllables like the words "treason...season...reason" themselves; to reverse the stress pattern would have sounded forced. These are also rather unusual rhymes, giving Millay an opportunity to prove her worth as a poet.
The sonnet takes the Italian form, divided into an octave and a sestet. The former deals with passivity: as might be expected, the protagonist offers no resistance to her seduction. However, the sestet witnesses her resurgence as she rejects her lovers as inadequate and inferior and reminds them harshly that she is intelligent and independent.
There is a small deviation from the Petrachan formula, as rhymes in the sestet run 'c,d,c,d,c,d' rather than 'c,d,e,c,d,e,' which maintains the springy rhythm Millay needs for her wit. This configuration - an establishment symbol but altered for one's own purposes - suits exactly the subject matter of the poem. Obedience to the rules of sonnet-writing can be seen as analogous to the obedience of society's expectations; this woman does conform to some extent but Millay manipulates her poem to reflect also the defiance and individuality of this unusual, independent woman.
The poem is written in a matter-of-fact tone and contains very few images, which is in itself antithetical to the tradition of romantic, florid sonnets; perhaps Millay is trying to make the point that it is in fact men who are the sentimental sex, and once again to illustrate female superiority. The images that are used are purely physical and, as such, are quite personal; "To bear your body's weight upon my breast," in particular, is too intimate for easy, unchallenging reading and is designed to provoke a reaction. The intention here is for the woman to assert herself not just on an intellectual footing but as a physical, sexual being too. The difficulty of this liberation, which was still highly controversial in 1923 when this was written, is shown in the internal struggle of her body, as her blood fights against her brain and her pulse against her mind.
Many famous sonnets deal with 'true' love, or the memory or it, whereas this woman states quite clearly: "Think not for this...I shall remember you with love." Here Millay is challenging the old poetic establishment and denying her affection or need for it. 'I, Being Born a Woman...' forms a cynical and audaciously candid retort both to lovers and to the male tradition of poets - she finds "insufficient reason for conversation" because she has heard it all before and it bores her; she is daring the poetic establishment to give women a voice and in this way allow something new to be said.
