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“They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory/ which is brighter than the sun they know the grief of man, without it wisdom/ they sink in man’s despair, without its calm;/ Are slaves without the liberty in Christdom/ Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm.” (Browning 1127) After reading “The cry of the children” one might come to think that this poem is about the harsh conditions facing children during the industrial revolution and in the coalmines and factories in which they were working. However, if you dig a little deeper and spend more time in this text you begin to realize, that “The cry of the children” might be about more than children and working conditions. It begins at the beginning when Browning starts discussing “leaning their young heads against their mothers” (Browning 1124) comparing the children to nature and the effects of men on their working and daily lives. Which makes us believe that this story is about not only work conditions for children, but women as well, and the social unjust that women and children faced during their lives in the Industrial Revolution.
This poem speaks about children in the literal sense. Browning uses children to describe harsh conditions and uses these children’s feelings to really connect with her audience and to really connect the reader to these factories and coalmines, as if you were their working with these children. Browning says in the poem, “They are weeping in the playtime of others, / in the country of the free.” (Browning 1124) Browning was expressing her feelings towards child labor, and the treatment of these children under these circumstances. Browning also uses men a lot in this poem, almost degrading them. Browning was a feminist and she thought the way that t...
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...rrett was a bookish, sheltered, uppermiddle-class unmarried woman far removed from the scenes she was describing, she gives evidence here of her passionate concern for human rights("Elizabeth Barrett Browning"). Women and children were treated unfair in all ways, and it becomes obvious that Browning highly rejects it.
Works Cited
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning." Poetryfoundation.org. Poetry Foundation. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
Isaacs, Jason. "Women’s issues and aurora leigh."victorianweb.org. Victorianweb, n.d. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
Renfroe , Erin. "Erin's Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s page." CSWNET. N.p.. Web. 12 Mar 2014.
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning." Poets.org. N.p.. Web. 12 Mar 2014. .
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. The cry of the children. 9th edition. E. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company INC. , 2012. 1124-1128. Print.
The kids under the age of fourteen were sent to go assist with the textile workers. They then would beat and verbally abuse the child. And if children would show up late, they would be weighted. Weighted means to put a very heavy weight on the child's back and have them walk up and down the factory aisles for hours, so other children can learn from it. This then resulted in back and neck injuries. (“Child Labor in Factories”) While this all seems really cruel, there were many positives that came out of child labor. Children were still able to contribute to their families. Money was a big struggle, and it had a major impact for poor families. Children were also getting a wide range of opportunities and work experiences for the future ahead. Although it might not be the best way to get experience, they were still helping out there families and showing respect towards them. This shows that during the Industrial Revolution, children were used harshly for labor, and the positives and negatives out of
When the poem is read aloud, the explicit rhyme and rhythm of the lines becomes extremely obvious. In fact, the bouncy rhythm is so uplifting, it occasionally makes the audiences feel like it is too predictable and straight-forward. An example would be “bright with chrysolite”, the word “chrysolite” feels like it is forcefully implemented for the sake of the rhyme. This is somewhat similar to a children’s tale. Most children’s tale as we know it, conveys messages straightforwardly and are easily understood by children, it also has an amiable tone and a merry mood that engages the children 's attention. Similarly, the rhyme and rhythm of this poem is very obvious and explicit, creating a delightful, casual mood that appeals to a young audience. Even though the legend dealt with deep insights about parenting that are intricate and puzzling, the father delivered it in such a gratifying, simple manner that made even the most dark and dreadful matters: like the description of precarious beasts and vicious monsters to sound like a blissful adventure of friendly animals. The sole purpose of this contradiction between the tone and message is to make this seemingly strong and serious topic more tolerable and captivating to the son of the father. Unsensible, impulsive youth is very similar to restless children, a long insipid lecture about deep insights is very difficult for them to buy into. In the same time, a harsh, threatening warning will only make them obey unwillingly, and creating a doubtful relationship will make them uncomfortable to communicate or appeal to their parents. Clearly, the percipient father recognized the ineffectiveness of these unsuitable parenting methods. Instead, he conveyed the message in a uncomplicated, friendly way that made his son to accept his teachings more comfortably. A
The fact that they feel they can sit about the knee of their mother, in this stereotypical image of a happy family doesn’t suggest that the children in this poem are oppressed... ... middle of paper ... ... y has a negative view of the childish desire for play which clearly has an effect on the children. The fact that they the are whispering shows that they are afraid of the nurse, and that they cannot express their true thoughts and desires freely, which is why they whisper, and therefore shows that Blake feels that children are oppressed. I feel that the two poems from innocence which are ‘The Echoing Green,’ and ‘The Nurses Song,’ display Blake’s ideological view of country life which I referred to in my introduction, and show his desire for childhood to be enjoyed.
Imagine families waking up on their kid’s sixth birthday and having to head towards the nearest cotton mill instead of going out and celebrating the occasion. All over the country kids of different ages were working in the same unsafe conditions as adults to help their family earn money. Florence Kelley’s speech was to fight for better working conditions and child labor laws in the early 1900’s. At this time each state had distinct laws about the work requirements. The author uses various forms of rhetorical devices such as pathos, personifications, and repetition throughout the speech to gain the audience’s support.
During the New Industrial Age in America, many aspects of American life were in flux. People were moving from rural areas to large population centres and factories were booming. This was also when America started to become an extremely capitalist country, with values to match. The economy was set up in a way that lower class Americans struggled to make a living, and as such child labour came into play. Children would work in factories that had conditions barely suitable for adults, let alone still developing children. They had to do this because it was necessary for their families to have whatever extra money they could get their hands on. All the while, upper class Americans were profiting off of the children’s suffering and amassing wealth
The idea of the innocence having been created or forced to exist is lost as the poem focuses on the children and how innocent they are. This stands out particularly in the second stanza which uses end rhyme and repetition to underline just how many children seemed to be going into the church. It is also in that same stanza that the children are referred to as lambs, which is a common symbol for innocence. It is not simply the multitudes of children, but the multitudes of the innocent that have been gathered. ...
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).
Elizabeth Browning was a great and famous writer of her time. She put in what she has gone through with her emotions and how she felt of the issue and plugged it into her dairy that now people of our society read now. She was a great inspiration to many other writers and artist of her time period. In my opinion, I believe she describe her feeling so well and not a lot of great people have the gift to express herself like she did in her work.
Many people hated the way many of the children had to work in unsafe conditions and not get an education. Many advocates spoke up to stop child labor, such as Grace Abbott. Abbott protected the incoming immigrants and children from being in those kind of conditions (Hobbs,1). The factory owners hated this kind of act because this made them lose the children workers. What the advocates hated the most was how the children were treated. The owners treated the children the same as the slaves. The children thought the same to they thought they were just property not actual living
During the Romantic Period from 1785-1832, when Blake wrote these poems, child labor and slavery was common. In both poems, poverty was conveyed, in Songs of Innocence, Blake described, “So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep” which signified his loss of innocence. However, Blake’s message in Songs of Experience conveyed to the reader that chimney sweeping was a dangerous profession and lead to early death, “They clothed me in the clothes of death.”
The speaker in the poem uses images to help to support the theme. For example the statement that "sometimes the woman borrowed my grandmother's face" displays the inability of the children to relate the dilemma to themselves, something that the speaker has learned later on with time and experience. In this poem, the speaker is an old woman, and she places a high emphasis on the burden of years from which she speaks by saying "old woman, / or nearly so, myself." "I know now that woman / and painting and season are almost one / and all beyond saving by children." clearly states that the poem is not written for the amusement of children but somebody that has reached the speaker's age, thus supporting the idea of the theme that children cannot help or understand her or anybody of her age. In addition, when the speakers describes the kids in the classroom as "restless on hard chairs" and "caring little for picture or old age" we can picture them in our minds sitting, ready to leave the class as soon as possible, unwilling and unable to understand the ethics dilemma or what the speaker is feeling.
Katherine Mansfield belongs to a group of female authors that have used their financial resources and social standing to critique the patriarchal status quo. Like Virginia Woolf, Mansfield was socioeconomically privileged enough to write influential texts that have been deemed as ‘proto-feminist’ before the initial feminist movements. The progressive era in which Mansfield writes proves to be especially problematic because, “[w]hile the Modernist tradition typically undermined middle-class values, women … did not have the recognized rights necessary to fully embrace the liberation from the[se] values” (Martin 69). Her short stories emphasized particular facets of female oppression, ranging from gendered social inequality to economic classism, and it is apparent that “[p]oor or rich, single or married, Mansfield’s women characters are all victims of their society” (Aihong 101). Mansfield’s short stories, “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, represent the feminist struggle to identify traditional patriarchy as an inherent caste system in modernity. This notion is exemplified through the social bonds women create, the naïve innocence associated with the upper classes, and the purposeful dehumanization of women through oppressive patriarchal methods. By examining the female characters in “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, it is evident that their relationships with other characters and themselves notify the reader of their encultured classist preconceptions, which is beneficial to analyze before discussing the sources of oppression.
Blake's portrayal of childhood is far from happy. A small child's mother dies while that child is still very young; this is sad but not all together strange. However the child's father then, very soon after, sells him off to be a chimney sweeper. Blake does not stop here; after a description these children's living conditions few emotions are left except for pity. As Americans living in the twenty first century, this all seams very strange. We see childhood as a time of joy, and innocence; a time to embrace, and to not let slip by too fast. We see childhood as Robert Frost does.
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
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own” (Blake, 123) The child is the symbol of the most fragile and brave components in the human mind. The characteristics of Romanticism are shown in his poems, for example the sense of wonder and the contemplation of Nature through fresh eyes. Everything that a child sees is mystery and beauty and goodness. The words in these poems fit the thought because he poems are simple. The “Songs of Innocence” most completely covers the definition of Romanticism. In this book, Blake deals with themes of experience and innocence, and on bigger Romantic themes is nature, the body, and sublime. The world of Nature and man full of love and beauty and innocence enjoyed by a happy child. In spite of his powerful emotions and his rare ideas, Blake keeps his structure perfectly clear and