Tuesday, March 19, 2013
The crying children.
The Cry of the Children provides an insight of the life of working children and the misery of life. These children were in fact the little adults of the Victorian period that we discussed in class. These children are in so much misery that they think "Death in life, as best to have". These children have obtained the belief that death would be more enjoyable than life because all they do is suffer and do labor. They then begin to question religion, God more specifically. They question his existence because he has not answered there prayers. These children did not get to experience a normal childhood; such as, innocence, joy, and growing experiences. These children were thrown into a life they had no choice but to take and are miserable living it. In this selection were are shown sides that make us feel more sympathetic towards the children because we do not get to see their kid side. To experience what they have at such a young age makes a person grow up faster than they should and not enjoy life, as these children have.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think you make a good point, and I understand the angle that you are approaching. I think that this poem might have been addressing religious disillusionment though, along with social issues like labor/child labor. I think Browning might have been using the voice of these children as a way to speak what she thinks adults also were going through at the time (especially since children were thought to be “little adults” at the time). Child labor is of course awful, but the work environment was the same that many adults were also subjected to. I also think that Browning was trying making a statement, like I mentioned before, about religious disillusionment. The subject of religion is clearly pointed out in this poem, and the children seem to acknowledge but reject the idea of it. To me, it is like Browning was trying to ultimately show that without both society and the word of God working parallel together then society and people of all ages will become lost in misery.
ReplyDeleteGreat points. See p. 515 of the anthology for more on the idea of "little adults." Basically, the idea of children as little adults was more the norm in earlier centuries (17th and 18th), and this was changing in the Victorian period to an understanding of childhood as a special, unique life stage. So, the fact that the children in Barrett-Browning's poem appear as little adults is meant to be satirical and biting--the point is that children should not be having these kinds of experiences because it destroys the very idea of childhood as a time of innocence and play.
ReplyDelete