What Is The Theme Of Inhumanism In The Cry Of The Children By Barrett Browning

1729 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Elizabeth barrett browning, “the cry of the children”

The vivid picture that Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s paints in “The Cry of the Children” depicts the moan of the nineteenth century social justice issue of child labour. Because of its consequences on the well-being of children and their future selves, child brutality was way more than just a case of working too hard. Barrett Browning rawly exploits the unheard lament of the child labourers, speaking from experience because of her father’s oppression and her sickness’ enslavement. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is able to effectively combat some of the injustice and discrimination shown during the Victorian Age by creating awareness and giving us a clear perspective of the detriments of child labour: dominating strength, indifferent hearts, immature …show more content…

This line is quoted from the play “Medea”, written by Euripides, just before the mother murders her own two children. This feeling in the heart before a mother murders her own two children would’ve been similar to the feeling of a mother sending her children to the factories, but there are other parallels Barrett Browning addresses. The insensitivity of looking away from the pain of your own children in the eye conveys a society that was dehumanizing the children’s eyes from “windows to the soul”, to transparent and lifeless. A mindset of potentiality and admiration had been disregarded and replaced by a sense of depreciated value. It is also important to note that this line was originally written just before an act of taking a child’s life as a selfish act for one’s own fulfillment. Barrett Browning is equating Medea, who killed her children in revenge toward her unfaithful husband, with the nineteenth century society, which killed its children for personal gain and provision. Barrett Browning was obviously done tolerating malicious and violent actions towards children, and her parable-like connection in the epigraph sets the stage for the entire

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Emma Griffith's Liberty Dawn

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    For the first time in history children were an important factor of the economic system, but at a terrible price. The master of the factories employed children for two reasons. One, because of their small body which can get inside the machines to clean it and use their nimble fingers. Second, the masters use to pay low wages to the children who could be easily manipulated. The average age for the parents to send their children to work was ten. 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. The author goes further and places child employees into three groups, according to the kind of jobs that were available in their neighbourhood. First group composed of children living in rural areas with no domestic industry to work in. Therefore, the average of a child to work in rural area was ten. Before that, farmers use to assign small jobs to the children such as scaring birds, keeping sheep

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Women Miners In The English Coal Pits

    1379 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the gradual advancements of society in the 1800’s came new conflicts to face. England, the leading country of technology at the time, seemed to be in good economic standing as it profited from such products the industrial revolution brought. This meant the need for workers increased which produced jobs but often resulted in the mistreatment of its laborers. Unfortunately the victims targeted were kids that were deprived of a happy childhood. A testimony by a sub-commissioner of mines in 1842 titled Women Miners in the English Coal Pits and The Sadler Report (1832), an interview of various kids, shows the deplorable conditions these kids were forced to face.

    Read More

  • Florence Kelley Ap Language Essay

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of the school life that they may work for us.” By going into detail about what kinds of work the children do at work helps to open up the audience’s eyes to a perspective that is more personal and in-depth than Kelley merely lecturing them. In doing this, Kelley is able to invoke a sense of guilt that the audience members share. Consequently, the audience members thus feel the need to make change and rid themselves of the guilt they feel by allowing the continuation of children’s forced labor. By using such complex rhetorical strategies, Kelley toys with the audience’s emotions as well as motivates them to provide support for the reform of child labor laws.

    Read More

  • Troubling Issues of Child Labor in Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys does an excellent job illustrating the troubling issue of child labor. The extent of child labor in a country is directly linked by the nature and extent of poverty within it. Child labor deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity. It is detrimental to physical and mental development. Today, there are an estimated 246 million child laborers around the globe. This irritating social issue is not only violates a nation’s minimum age laws , it also involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, and illicit activities. In Between Shades of Grey , Lina and her ten year old brother are unrightfully charged 25 years of labor at a work camp in Siberia. It prevented the children from going to school and used them to undermine labor standards. In the harsh winter and even worse living conditions, they watched their mother as she starved to death.

    Read More

  • Innocence and Experience in William Blake's Literature

    493 Words  | 1 Pages

    William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.

    Read More

  • Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.

    Read More

  • The Industrial Revolution and the Deterioration of the Traditional Family

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution." Eastern Illinois University. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014.

    Read More

  • Child Labor Essay

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    England was a society dominated by children. During the reign of Queen Victoria one out of three of her servants were under the age of fifteen. Child labor was a prominent issue, because there were no systems to ensure the safety of children. During the start of the industrial revolution, there was a “high demand” for labor (Robson 53). Many families moved from rural areas to new, industrialized cities. After a while things weren’t looking as “promising” as they did before (Boone 23). In order to maintain, families had to put almost all of their family members to work. This led to a rise in the number of child labor. Children were “mistreated, underpayed and overworked” (Kincaid 30). Using children to do all of the hard work, the mining companies believed, was the most sensible and efficient way to get the job done. Because the children were a lot smaller, it was easy for them to “maneuver through tight spaces” and on top of that the children demanded little or no pay at all(Boone 43 ). These wages were enough to persuade companies to use children for all sorts of dangerous jobs such as coal mining and chimney sweeps. Children were called to do many other “horrible” jobs, jobs that adults in this era could not bear, just so long as the bills were paid (Robson 18). The working conditions and treatment of young children during this era was horrible and a lot was done to put an end to it.

    Read More

  • Child Labor In The 1800s

    217 Words  | 1 Pages

    The primary artifact in this museum exhibit displays children working in a factory in the early 1900’s, shining light on the greater issue of child labor. Through this exhibit, we explore in depth the threats child labor poses to mankind. There are several images portraying the struggles children went through while working in factories or in the fields, accompanied by excerpts of text from different laws concerning child labor and a political cartoon. The two texts from the Child Labor Amendment and the Child Labor Prohibition and Regulation Act portray change over time, as both passages discuss limitations on the extent of child labor in the United States of America. The photos of the injured child, the boys smoking, and the children harvesting

    Read More

  • Child Labor Essay

    893 Words  | 2 Pages

    The late 1800’s and early 1900’s were difficult times for children in the work force. Underpaid children worked long hours in harsh conditions such as high temperatures, exposure to chemicals, and with cuts and bruises. In concern for their well being the National Child Labor Committee was formed. This organization fought to expose and change the hard conditions children were forced to face. Numerous labor movements and reforms began to fight against child labor since child labor began to come into view for many (Fried).

    Read More

  • Oedipus the King: Light vs. Dark

    411 Words  | 1 Pages

    Tiresias responds by using the same metaphor: So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this.  You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption of your life, to the house you live in, those you live with—who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light!

    Read More

  • Child Labour Hypocrisy

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    The term ‘child labor’ is used to define any work that is mentally, physically and morally harmful to children, and interferes with their education (ILO). Children have been used as a labor force throughout most of our history. After decades of struggle aimed to combat the massive employment of child labor, the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 ratified that children have the right to develop harmoniously their personality in a loving family environment. Moreover, it recognized the right of the children to be protected from exploitation, and any form of labor that jeopardizes their physical, mental and moral well-being. However, child labor is still eagerly diffuse in developing countries,

    Read More

  • Orphans in Nineteenth-Century England

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    There is no denying that the nineteenth century in England was a time of tremendous changes throughout the social and economical spectrums. As the adults adjusted to these changes prompted by the Industrial Revolution as best they could, many children, in particular orphans, were faced with poor living conditions that limited their successes later in life. Although most orphaned children were fortunate enough to be placed into sufficient living circumstances, many of them were not as privileged. By discussing the various living conditions of orphans in nineteenth-century England, one can better understand their position in the English society and realize why their later successes were so limited.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Child Labour

    3227 Words  | 7 Pages

    What comes to mind when hearing the words child labor? Is it simply of children doing work in a 1920’s factory? Is it an image of Malaysian children in a sweatshop making sneakers for less than a quarter a day? When many people think of child labor, they always connect it with negative meanings. Child labor has become a global issue; many of the countries whom employ child workers are developing ones. According to the International Labor Organization, the number of child laborers has decreased from a stifling 246 million, to 168 million. It’s also well known that child labor was a major part of the United States, and many other industrial countries in the late 1800’s and for the US, mainly in the early 1900’s. While child labor is constantly viewed in the negative, many do not take a look at the possible benefits of having children work at an earlier age. Trying to refrain from looking more into the hazardous conditions that many children have to work with, looking at the idea of having children work at an earlier age and the benefits it brings in terms of developing a better work ethic, and aiding children into stepping into the adult world.

    Read More

  • The Chimney Sweeper Analysis

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    So if all do their duty they need not fear harm”, (23-24). These lines infer that there is still hope that society will see the error of their ways and put an end to their suffering, and if not, they will be released to a better place in death. Society will someday realize that what they robbed these children of was immoral and wrong and they will stop the injustice and put an end to child labor. Works Cited Blake, William.

    Read More

More about What Is The Theme Of Inhumanism In The Cry Of The Children By Barrett Browning

Open Document