Sor Juana 3

Writing poetry came easy for Sor Juana because like she had originally stated, she learned how to read and write at the age of seven. It wasn't difficult for her to put her feelings and opinions down on paper because she was both highly intelligent and inspiring. She wanted others, including her readers and especially women, to hear her out and come to agree with her. Sor Juana discusses several topics throughout her poems, but she mostly focuses on men and their treatment towards women. She writes about passion, truth, love, jealousy, suffering, and how they affect a person's life. Within these topics she argues how they interfere with emotions, fantasy, and cause difficulties until death. Sor Juana mostly focuses on the principles between men and women, constantly bringing up the fact that men cause nothing but problems for women. Women do nothing but love and care for men, while men always feel the need to downgrade them and have the upper hand. Men use their power to overrule women and torment them for anything they feel is wrong, but in reality it is the women who are right and the men who are wrong. I think that she liked poetry better than prose because she could get her point across more easily by using ways of rhythm and verse. It flowed better and could be seen more clear. Earlier she even stated how verses help her think and it isn't difficult for her, but instead it comes easy. 

I really liked poem 165 on page 161 because once again she is depicting love and comparing it to happiness. She claims love is a spell that is the cause of women being content and in a fantasy world. Love is what women most embrace and desire, but at the same time she compares it to jail because of how men tend to ruin it. Women have so much to offer, but men always neglect the feeling of love for lust and do nothing but flatter then disappoint.

I thought poem 92 on page 165 was very interesting because she downgrades men for belittling women. It is always men who are on a higher pedestal than women, but Sor Juana is proving that women can take the lead, as well. She argues how men never take the blame are claim they are never at fault, but she gets her point across that it is them and not the women who they cast it upon. She focuses on scorn because no matter what women do, whether they admit their love or deny it, they are always seen as foolish. Just like lines 30-31  state, "and fails to admit you is ungrateful; yet if she admits you, too easily won." Right after she explains how women may be foolish, but men are also seen as fools because they can never own up to their cruelty or low self-esteem for being at fault.