SONNET ANALYSIS #1

Big Question: Why is it that people in society are intensely interested in pleasing others and/or fitting in to the "perfect" world society has drawn for us? Why the desire to live in that world?

Sonnet 141: http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/141

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, 

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:

  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

 That she that makes me sin awards me pain.



Interpretation:
I do not love you on the outside, not with my eyes for I see faults in you. I like you, but I despise your image.

When hearing your name I am not delighted, nor do I feel a tender or sensual pull towards you.

Despite this I am still your servant, I cannot escape that.

I only gain one thing from you. You are the women that makes me sin and rewards me with pain.


In my big question I state my frustration by asking why people are people pleasers. I ask why the world we live in has shaped our perception of many things. This sonnet is focused on outer beauty and the physic of a women. The reader recognizes that the narrator is degrading the women he is talking about. The women is unlike any other women. She is ugly, the sound of her voice is unpleasant, she is not desired yet there is something about her that forces the narrator to stay close to her. It is something not even he could fully explain.

In our world today we have media telling us how we should look and what we should wear. The media lets us know that in order to be pleasant and fit into their perfect little world is to look and dress a certain way. It has taught young women to strive to look one way, and young men to fish for that perfect all over girl; nothing more and nothing less. Nothing and nobody else matters. In the sonnet the narrator is focused on the physic of the women, and last comes her power, heart and personality. The fact that the women is not really present in the sonnet may be a coincidence, but I take it as another point to support my thoughts. The women has no say, she lives to please the man for what he is looking for first is outer beauty. Our media is to blame.