Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the most famous female poet in both England and the United States of America in the nineteenth century. Being an activist, she would write powerful poetry protesting many issues that she felt strongly about; such as slavery, prostitution, women’s rights, and child labor. Her poetry alone would spark social debate, calling people to political action. Concerned that her society was exploiting human life for profit, she knew she had to do something to open people’s eyes. The sonnet Barrett Browning wrote, The Cry of the Children, inspired change in the industrial revolution and inspired the British parliament to set child labor laws. The Cry of the Children is “an expression of her own alienation and abhorrence of …show more content…
Desperately trying to make money, families often sent their young children to work dangerous jobs in factories and coal mines for up to (and sometimes longer than) 16 hours a day in harsh conditions. Barrett Browning, outraged by the horrendous situations these children were finding themselves in, decided to write her poem The Cry of the Children based on the industrial society though the eyes and hearts of factory children. Mentioning the long hours that the children must work laboring in the factories and mines, Barrett Browning writes, “They have never seen the sunshine” (425). All the children working in these tough living conditions do not get the chance to see day time because they are either working from dawn to dusk every day in factories, or are working in the depths of coal mines where the sun doesn’t shine. Depriving children of these simple pleasures is inhumane and completely unethical. Working them for all of their waking hours is stealing from them the childhood they deserve, and potentially even shortening their lives. Because of Barrett Browning, the British parliament decided to regulate the hours in which children are allowed to
Although, Conventional wisdom dictates that the age at which children started work was connected to the poverty of the family. Griffith presents two autobiographies to put across her point. Autobiography of Edward Davis who lacked even the basic necessities of life because of his father’s heavy drinking habit and was forced to join work at a small age of six, whereas the memoir of Richard Boswell tells the opposite. He was raised up in an affluent family who studied in a boarding school. He was taken out of school at the age of thirteen to become a draper’s apprentice.
Working in the mills is physically demanding. The work that men due are dangerous and accidents and injuries take place at the mill. Life in the steel towns involves the same twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. Every week there is a shift of working days and nights. On turn days the men work a twenty-hours straight, which leads to tempers and accidents. “Hope sustained him, as it sustained them all; hope and the human.” (Bell, 47) They hoped that the jobs would be there and the money would steadily come in. As Pervosky says, “No work, no pork, no money, no boloney.” (Bell, 268) Without work the men would not be able to provide for their families.
The poem “My Boy” shows how long the work hours were by saying, “[Before] dawn my labor drives me forth. Tis night when I am free; A stranger am I to my child; And he one to me.” (Document 2) From dawn to night was a normal time period that people would work and she would come home to her family where they were strangers. The long hours were not only tiring on the body, but also put a strain on the quantity and quality of time spent with family. The hours were not easy labor either, the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley shows that labor was difficult and the bosses worked the employees
Women of both the ages of Victorian and early Modernism were restricted from education at universities or the financial independence of professionalism. In both ages, women writers often rebelled against perceived female expectations as a result of their oppression. To lead a solitary life as a subservient wife and mother was not satisfactory for writers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf. One of the most popular female poets of the Victorian era, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, illustrated "a woman's struggle to achieve artistic and economical independence in modern society" (Longman P.1858). Many Victorian critics were shocked by Barrett Browning's female rebellion, which was rare for the era. With her autobiographical epic poem, Aurora Leigh provoked critics who were "scandalized by its radical revision of Victorian ideals of femininity" (P.1859). In the age of Modernism, women were finally given the some rights to a higher education and professionalism i n 1928 (p.2175). However, female poets of early Modernism, such as Virginia Woolf, were raised in the Victorian age. Rebellion toward "Victorian sexual norms and gender roles" (P.2175) are reflected in Woolf's modern literary piece, such as The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection. Also echoed in the piece, is how Woolf "never lost the keen sense of anguish nor the self-doubt occasioned by the closed doors of the academy to women" (P.2445).
By the virtue of their innocence, the children in “Marigolds” are cruel. Lizabeth explains how there are “...no radios, few newspapers, and no magazines”(76). Thus the kids are unaware of the poverty they are living in. They have no knowledge of what is happening in the world and are only exposed of what is around them. They live their lives normally, doing their chores, playing and running around like any kid will do. One day, the kids are bored and ...
In essence, Elizabeth Barrett Browning dramatic monologue proved a powerful medium for Barrett Browning. Taking her need to produce a public poem about slavery to her own developing poetics, Barrett Browning include rape and infanticide into the slave’s denunciation of patriarchy. She felt bound by women’s silence concerning their bodies and the belief that “ a man’s private life was beyond the pale of political scrutiny” (Cooper, 46).
In the first half of the poem, the speaker reminds readers of childhood. She presents the readers with imagery, a form of descriptive language, by illustrating the colorful overshoes lined up against the wall of the kindergarten, “black, red, brown, all/ with those brass buckles” (lines 1-5). This part of the poem helps the reader settle into the setting and mindset of the speaker. She repeats “remember... remember,” inviting the readers to recall their childhood, how everything looked then, and how different aspects of life mattered (5, 15). “You couldn't/ buckle your own/ overshoe,” the speaker states as she continues to list the difficulties, failures, and impossibilities of life as a child (5-9). As children, people are completely dependent on others to do things for them and correct the world around them. It is frustrating for children to not be able to accomplish even simple, self-help tasks.
Through her endeavors, this seems to be a new way of thoroughly expressing her admiration and vast affection for her husband. Emily Barrett Browning has proved herself a master poet. Not only does she use almost every literary device in the book, but she also delves deep into her feelings. These explanations of her feelings that she adds into the sonnets are rich in metaphors, alliteration, personification, and many more.
When Blake was inspired to write about these boys, their barbaric lives were not only common knowledge, but accepted. Throughout the passing years, however, history has lost sight of the horror they faced everyday. Therefore, familiarity with such details does help the reader to see more clearly Blake's indictment of a society that allows children to be subjected to almost unbelievable wretched conditions, and it also gives more force and point to the realism and imagery. (Nurmi, 15) History reveals that children usually began these lives at the age of 6 or 7 or even earlier. The job tormented their small bodies, leaving them to die with deformed ankles, twisted kneecaps and spines, or with "chimney sweeps cancer." The boys began their days long before sunrise until about noon when they "cried the streets" for more business. When it was time to return these young boys carried heavy bags of soot to the cellars and attics where they slept. Even the task of sleeping was torture. The boys owned nothing and were given nothing, leaving them with only the bags of soot that had swept for a bed.
In the poem “The Cry of the Children” elizabeth browning uses themes like children are mentally and physically destroyed from child labor, and factory life leaves children mourning a normal childhood. The author uses literary devices such as diction, imagery and dialogue to portray this.
The poetry of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning was bent and shaped by one's whom she had loved throughout her life. Her poetry has shown, like a book, that the ending of a novel ends up within a new perspective, as a result from conflicts. A plotline to a book is like emotions to a human. Barrett was overpowered by love, and she spilled it all in her poetry. She loved her father, her brother, and Robert Browning.
I come to work at seven o’clock, and sometimes leave at four, five or six in the evening in summer, and in the winter near seven.” (Speed and Speed, 1985). As stated in that quote, children had a hard life working in mines and other work places. The pay was also much lower than adult workers in the same factory. Injury is common in workplaces for kids and ranges from broken bones to death.
She says “writing can be an expression of one 's innermost feelings. It can allow the reader to tap into the deepest recesses of one 's heart and soul. It is indeed the gifted author that can cause the reader to cry at her words and feel hope within the same poem. Many authors as well, as ordinary people use writing as a way to release emotions.” She makes plenty points in her review that I completely agree with. After reading the poem I think that Elizabeth Barret Browning is not only the author of her famous poem, but also the speaker as well. She is a woman simply expressing her love for her husband in a passionate way through poetry. In the 1st Line it reads “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” A woman drunk in love she is, and next she begins to count the numerous ways she can love her significant
In the poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake, the author attempts to educate the reader about the horrors experienced by young children who are forced into labor at an early age cleaning chimneys for the wealthy. The poem begins with a young boy who has lost his mother but has no time to properly grieve because his father has sold him into a life of filth and despair. The child weeps not only for the loss of his mother and his father’s betrayal, but also for the loss of his childhood and innocence. Blake uses poetry in an attempt to provoke outrage over the inhumane and dangerous practice of exploiting children and attempts to shine a light on the plight of the children by appealing to the reader’s conscience in order to free the children from their nightmare existence.
In "The Cry of the Children," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this poem to describe the thoughts and wishes of the children paired with an outsider’s pleas with the public to change the lives and conditions of the children. Browning uses one theme in partictlar about politics, with the use of strong imagery, to draw her readers into the live of the children forced into working in the mines and factories of industrial England. Browning writen the poem in order to expose the horrific conditions under which these children are forced to live and die by using the psycholoical approach. In the first stanza of the poem, the reader is offered an idea of just how awful the conditions these children experience everyday are.