Mock Orange by Louise Gluck Essay Example

the ‘cries’, screams, moans, that naturally come during intercourse for both individuals. Moaning, screaming, or yelling, come from the satisfaction but immediately after she feels ashamed or humiliation of being with someone for only moments of pleasure. The speaker does not view sex as a beautiful union between two people, but “as a way to be controlled, lured by a promise of an answer”. (Emily Stone) Once again, Gluck shows the reader how her speakers disgust for sex, a controlling mechanism. What is the answer that is promised?

In lines12-20, the speaker hears a question and answer all at once; the question, are we done? The obvious answer is yes. They now part and go their separate ways. It seems no matter how often the speaker engages in sex, she still hears the same questions and answer, there is nothing after the acts accept: “the scent of mock orange” which “drifts through the window”. The scent is the very powerful fragrance that comes into the room and covers the shame which then erases the line of the past union.

Finally, Gluck allows you to ponder with the speaker in the last lines:

How can I rest?
How can I be consent
When there is still
That odor in the world? (21-24)

After such loveless sex, how can one who was just involved in such an act with another, rest. How is it that anyone can be happy or okay knowing the scent will never leave the world. The scent of the Mock Orange like the scent of sex is a constant in an ever changing world.