A Woman with a Message

Danielle Sloan

Dr. Hague

English 370

10 December 2013

Elizabeth Barrett Browning—A Woman with a Message

            The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was woman poet during the eighteen hundreds who wrote with purpose. Barrett Browning’s writing during the Victorian Era drew in audiences to see the true condition of the world that surrounded them. Her honesty and political stance is what makes her poetry such an impact to even today’s society. Many critics of the time showed some uncertainty regarding the strong stances made by Barrett Browning, but she never allowed this to silence her and the issues she felt needed to share. Overall Elizabeth Barrett Browning is seen as a poet ahead of her time due to her feminist ideology and the criticisms she had reflecting society in hopes to help it grow as a better institution.

            Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a woman of many words, and they usually were to speak up for what she believed in to be right. Without insights such as this one I can only wonder where society would be able to stand. However, many critics did not feel the same tie to Barrett Browning’s work as I did. Many critics believed her to be too political, for example Henry Fothergill Chorley writes, “She is more political than poetical…Mrs. Browning’s art suffers from the violence of her temper. Choosing to scold she forgets to sing” (EBB 350). As a misunderstood writer Barrett Browning could have followed the proper code for a woman writer and comply with what she being criticized about. However, she kept writing with purpose. Even some argued that she did not know what she was talking about when they say, “If there is any complaint to utter it should be addressed, respectively, to the citizens of the States—which are in many, if not most respects, independent communities…seems difficult of apprehension to the foreign mind; and statesmen and practical men have committed the confusion in which our respected poet is involved” (EBB 342). These critics get right down to the overall point that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was trying to translate to readers. The may say that she does not have a say and that just because they know about a problem does not mean they need to fix it; however, Barrett Browning challenges her readers to gain sympathy through the ethos approach of many of her poems. She does this why also attempting to find passion within the audience to make the difference. Her work goes on to make the difference because it challenges the reader to look beyond what the intuitions tell them to think and feel, and instead be the change that the institutions are in need of.

            A greatly known poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is The Cry of the Children. This poem captivates the set standard in society for children of the lower class. Barrett Browning starts the poem with:

            Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The     young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The             young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the           west—But the young, young children, O brothers, They are weeping in the playtime of             the others, In the country of the free (1-10 The Cry of the Children).

In essence Barrett Browning is pulling in the audience by pulling at their heart strings. Her imagery of children weeping is something that she repeats to represent the repetition of pain that children in society experience every day. It is amazing the way that Barrett Browning can appeal to ethos without coming of as judgmental for the situation and trying to find whom is to blame for making the situation a reality. Her call to the “brotherhood” is one that is also repeated in the text. This sense of unity that she makes is set from the beginning. Through this unity being made she is influencing the audience to see that together they can change the situation that the children are put into during this time period. However, she is clearer to leaves readers with the idea that this is supposed to be a free nation, but these poor weeping children have no true say. This leads to the overall conclusion that the reader is to make that it is the nation that needs to change. The beautiful way that Barrett Browning creates this need for change and a call of duty emulates her desire to make change. With attempts to call upon a brotherhood to inspire change she is making all parties involved responsible by translating the notion of if a person is not doing anything to help, then they are as much to blame. This message is a reoccurring theme that Barrett Browning focuses on so that her writing has that overall purpose to create a difference. In Barrett Browning’s last section of the poem she leaves the readers with this idea, “How long’ they say ‘how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart” (153-155 The Cry of the Children). This idea of taking responsibility for the circumstance that has been made through children working in factories is one that Barrett Browning hopes to instill within the audience. She repeats to make clear that it is not just one person, but an entire nation that has failed the children showing what flaws make this intuition. What shines throughout the poem is her need to make a difference for the children. Even though people may not agree that it is her place to write about such a topic, Barrett Browning does not let this stop her. Instead she is doing her part to be involved in the difference and give voice to those who do not have one. It is pure irony that Barrett Browning writes about the topic because she is taking part in taking responsibility for her part of this nation to make a difference.

            Barrett Browning is woman that hopes to influence a difference within society which will lead to a change within the institutions. Another poem where Barrett Browning speaks out to help those whom do not have a voice is in the poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point. This poem focuses mainly on the voice that a slave woman desperately cannot find within society leading her to feel the need to commit infanticide to save her child from a life a misery and corruption. Once analyzed the poem shows a link from “her texts with many other works by social reformers on both sides of the Atlantic who also used infanticide as a symbol of the catastrophic failure of various social systems” showing the criticism that Barrett Browning portrayed is one that people started to take notice to (Ficke). This original poem is written to critic the institution of slavery and all who take part in something so hideous. Barrett Browning does not just express the horror of slavery as a whole, but gets into the deeper problems that have become apparent due to such and institution. When she writes, “I am black, I am black!—But once I laughed a girlish glee, For one of my color stood in the track Where the drivers drove, and looked at me, And tender and full was the look he gave—Could a slave look so at another slave?—I look at the sky and the sea,” she is demonstrating how so much of their right to humanity is taken from them (The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point 57-63). Through such a feeling Barrett Browning is opening the reader’s eyes to the reality that slaves are people, who cannot even feel like people anymore. This sad fact goes back to her pointing out the destruction that the social intuitions have made within society. Her way humanizing the narrator allows the audience to not only see the narrator as a slave, but and actual person. This overall message is a priority for Barrett Browning as a poet because it allows her to get into a problem that she sees to be even more tragic than pure slavery.

             Elizabeth Barrett Browning is so bold to address the fact of intercourse between a slave owner and a slave demonstrating and even deeper problem: “My own, own child! I could not bear To look in his face, it was xo white I covered him up with a kerchief there I covered his face in close and tight: And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, For the white child wanted his liberty” (The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point 120-125). Barrett Browning is addressing the pure desperation that is inside a woman stuck in slavery. This display of desperation allows readers to see the through “infanticide narratives there are compelling illustrations of the hypocrisy of social and legal systems that insisted on the one hand that women were formed to nurture children, and yet set up numerous restrictions and barriers that prevented women from being able to do just that” (Ficke). Barrett Browning is addressing not only the fact that civil liberties are being taken away from these slaves, but so importantly the right for a woman to love their child. Some may argue that this is an act of murder; however, as Barrett Browning points out there are no other options for these women to turn to. Some women in this situation would argue that it is not through a hatred of the child that they commit infanticide, but more a duty to save the child from a life full of misery. Barrett Browning designs the poem in such a way to not only show the true desperation that so many slave women face, but also the intuition that they are stuck in and imprisoned to. Without recognition of this harsh reality so many lives will suffer and these women will be robbed of their given rights as mothers. In writing The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point Barrett Browning hopes to instill a call of action within this intuition.  

            Women and children in this time had the short end of the stick and could not see fairness within society’s boundaries. However, Elizabeth Barrett Browning sets up a character within her poem to show the abilities that women have to make positive impacts on society. In Aurora Leigh a woman in the end is able to have both the domestic life and still independence to write and be part of society. This balance is captured in the end of the poem: “The world waits for help. Beloved, let us love so well Our work shall still be better for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work” (Aurora Leigh). Barrett Browning shows what balance can be found in a woman through her becoming part of society and a true voice within it. All of her criticisms of a society lead readers to see what boundaries have been set for women and then see how a character of Aurora can preserve past those boundaries (Stone). Without a work such as Aurora Leigh defining moments for women might not have been as persistent because there was no way to see how a balance could be met. However, by Barrett Browning adjusting the roles women need to fit into rather than rewriting them she is demonstrating a way for society to grow instead of perish.

            Elizabeth Barrett Browning has made such an impact not only by her creative and extraordinary writing, but also by the fact that she stands up for what she believes in. Her reoccurring themes to make change within society and politics were not so accepted by all, but she persevered to make her voice matter. Due to such impactful and inspiring pieces of writing Elizabeth Barrett Browning was able to display the pure evil and destruction that was taking place within society due to the institutions that were set. Her way of calling her readers to action and feel sympathy for those affected allowed her popularity to rise and make her feminist point matter within society. Her ideologies and tactic paved way for further steps to be taken in the future, allowing for all voices to matter. The beauty in it all is that Elizabeth Barrett Browning called upon all to use their ability to make change and help others; therefore, she used her strengths within writing to create change within society. Without such an inspirational and determined writer who knows where society would have ended up.

Works Cited

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Aurora Leigh. New York: Oxford Universtiy Press, 1993. Print.

—. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Selected Poems. Ontario: Broadview Editions, 2009. Print.

"The Literary World." Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Selected Poems. Ontario: Broadview Editions, 2009. 342. Print.

Ficke, Sarah H. "Crafting Social Criticism." (n.d.). Print.

Fothergill, Henry. "Poems before Congress." Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Selected Poems. Ontaria: Broadview Editions, 2009. 351. Print.

Stone, Marjorie. "Genre Subersion and Gender Inversion." (n.d.). Print.