The blog posts you find here are created from interpretive problems we puzzled over as we read different texts from British Literature. Each blogger poses a question and then works out a few possible solutions.
- Two [Stories] Diverge...
- Is it just a chair?
- More than just a house?
- How Does One Paint a Scene?
- Will Mr. Hat and Mr. Blanket please stand up?
- What Do the Letters Say?
- How should I feel about Kitty?
- How does one feel about Kitty?
- To sympathize or to not...
- How can I judge such a "perfect woman"?
- How are we supposed to feel about Kitty?
- Why is it never that easy?
- Surprised or satisfied?
- Lady Audley: Villain or Victim?
- Who will prevail, Deception or Truth?
- Apathy or Sympathy?
- You wont give up will you Lady Audley?
- Who makes the ultimate power play?
- I have the power now, right?
- Who will hold on to their power the longest?
- Merely Mad or Mostly Monster?
- Who will last longer?
- Does the destitution justify the deceit?
- The Battle of the Sexes: Who has more of it?
- Is Clara Robert's Energizer?
- Why is Clara so important to the story?
- Maid or Secret Keeper?
- Psychologist or Barrister?
- Gambling with knowledge?
- Which type of knowledge is more dangerous?
- How do you read? How do you do this/that?
- What are you hiding, Phoebe?
- How does Mr. Marks add to Lady Audley's Secret?
- The laziest linchpin
- She's got a secret...Can she keep it?
- How Might One Be So Confident, Yet So Uncertain?
- We know there's a secret, but how do we know it's a bad one?
- What is evidence and what is deceitfulness?
- What's the Secret to Lady Audley's Charm?
- Responsibility: Victor or His Creation?
- Why does Shelley make the telling of this story so complicated?
- Why so many perspectives?
- Who's Story Is It Anyway?
- Who is Responsible for my Irresponsibility?
- Who Has Responsibility?
- What is OUR Responsibility?
- On trial?
- Did I Do That?
- Who are we to judge?
- with horrible creation comes great responsibility?
- Obligation or Pity?
- A call to turn a blind eye
- Where Does the Difference Between Word and Action Lie?
- What role does self-identification have with compassion?
- A monster or a child?
- What's So Compelling About the Monster's Story?
- Who had it worse?
- So What's Your Story?
- Different stories, different people, same purpose?
- What do Victor and his Monster hope to achieve by telling their stories?
- You can't have it both ways: Justice or Injustice?
- How is Justine not given Justice, I Just don't understand?
- Who should be the Judge and Executioner?
- Can You Spot the Ignorant One?
- To Whom It May Concern
- Is Knowledge Power?
- Your friend's brother's wife's uncle told you WHAT?
- What's the value of a letter?
- Letter writing is an art, don't you think so?
- Hidden Messages: How is Storytelling Used in Frankenstein?
- What's Her Name Again?
- 50 Shades of crazy?
- All Is Fair In Love and War
- It's All in Good Fun, Right?
- Can you be unaware yet in control?
- I'm in control! (My wife said I could be.) Right?
- Why have one personality when you can have four?!
- Is Beauplaisir All Powerful?
- What makes Fantomina special for her time?
- Proper Woman with and Inquiring Mind?
- Which mask should she wear?
- Who is Fantomina?
- Why lose her identity?
- How far must she fall to keep him?
- Could There Be More Similarities Between Fantomina and Celia Than We Think?
- What's a Young Woman Supposed to Do?
- Is Celia just Fantomina 2.0?
- Tempted, But Unyielding
- Didn't I Just Say NOT to Eat That?
- Lizzie (Christ) the redeemer?
- How Did Two Women Overcome Society?
- Can we hear Laura sing, "Let It Go"?
- Side by side or miles apart, will sisters always be connected by heart?
- Two Sisters or One Example?
- The Struggle Is Real.
- Goblin Market: The First Sin Retold?
- The Duke's Disdain: A Result of Pride or Love?
- What about the Duchess?
- Was does the Duke's hatred of his late wife say about his character?
How can Barbauld’s contradictory statements on women’s education be reconciled?
Undoubtedly, Anna Barbauld remains a key figure in the beginning women’s rights movement toward the end of the 18th century. However, unlike the staunch women’s rights advocate, Mary Wollstonecraft, who urged women to find power within themselves and to gain education independent of men, Barbauld took a different approach– one that seems, at first glance, to undermine the intelligence and self-efficacy of women.
Barbauld turns down the opportunity to help open a school for women, making the statement that a woman’s best chance at getting a quality education comes from conversation in the home with a male brother, father or friend. If Barbauld wants women to gain empowerment, why does she make this statement? We should also consider the fact she was working as a teacher for male students during this time. Barbauld’s actions suggest she thinks woman’s education environment should revolve around the house, which stands against the feminist notion that women need to get outside of the home to activate their rational minds.
In her poem, “The Rights of Woman,” which responds to Wollstonecraft’s essay “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” Barbauld states, “Make treacherous Man thy subject, not they friend; / Thou mayst command, but never canst be free” (19-20). She then goes on to break the hope of women maintaining this power over men because over time, “thou soon shalt find / Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way” (27-28). Her statements confirm her divergence from Wollstonecraft on the notion of sensibility. Barbauld believed Wollstonecraft was trying to get women to replace sentimentality with rationality, which simply goes against the nature of women (Newlyn 160). If women start acting like men by ignoring their natural tendency to adhere to their emotions, they will not succeed in their quest for become more rationally-minded beings.
Perhaps working with male students caused Barbauld to perceive inherent differences between the female and male mind and thus take a more conservative stance toward women’s education. Women cannot mask their emotions with “coldness” and rationality in order gain equal footing with men, Barbauld argues. Education should thus take different forms for women and women. However, Barbuald has received a formal education herself. She seems to make an exception for herself, but maybe she thinks she is less sentimental than most women.
Does Falling in Love Affect Feminist Ideals?
By Cara Campos
Felicia Hemans, not unlike Wollstonecraft and Barbauld, carries what would be considered a “feminist” tone throughout her works; like her fellow female writers, she is clearly dissatisfied with her lot and life and emphasizes her desire not only to obtain knowledge, but to be able to use it as men do in the real world.
Her poem Woman and Fame perfectly exemplifies the typical struggle that feminists have to undertake in the time in which she writes. She states how fame “canst not be the stay/ Unto the drooping reed” because she is a woman and women cannot pursue or attain fame as men can, but she is bitter about this fact, and this tone is conveyed clearly throughout the poem.
A Spirit’s Return, however, seems to convey a clear shift from any feminist ideals—instead, she focuses on the strength of her feelings for a dead lover and even performs a kind of necromancy to commune with him.
Although at the beginning of the poem she does talk about her “life’s lone passion, the mysterious quest/ Of secret knowledge,” her obsession with her dead lover completely overshadows any hint of feminism. In his article “Spiritual Converse: Heman’s A Spirit’s Return in Dialogue with Byron and Shelley,” Alan Richardson states that Heman’s voice is not anti-feminist because “the beloved’s death removes even the possibility that the speaker’s love may result in domestic happiness.” However, when reading the poem, this idea was unclear to me. Instead, I found that her total fixation on her deceased lover, a man, was incongruent with a feminist message.
Lord Byron, who also wrote in Hemans’ time, was praised for his romantic poetry, but although Hemans uses similar concepts, since I admire Hemans for being a feminist in her time, I cannot admire her use of romantic poetry in the way I do Lord Byron’s. Although this may be unfair, to me, the very mention of the kind of love that the speaker in A Spirit’s Return feels towards her lover portrays an image that is incongruent with feminism.
she focuses on the strength of her feelings for a dead lover and even performs a kind of necromancy to commune with him play tic tac toe .
The reason is that she seems to make an exception for herself, but in large part it’s probably because she thinks she’s less emotional than most women. find a word