Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Equality for men and women was at one point in time a laughable thought. Men were thought to be inherently dominant and women were there to agree with them and make their life easier. Elizabeth Barrett Browning would not hear of this! There was no way she was willing to have her life defined by her gender. She was one of the great minds and brave women who have made it possible for women in modern society to have the independence and opportunity we are given today. Without women brave enough to voice their opinions, such as Barrett Browning did on the unfairness of Victorian society’s role of women, I myself might still not have the right to vote or lead a fulfilling life choosing my own future. Her piece titled “Aurora Leigh” was the first major English piece where the main character is female. In the poem, Barrett Browning creates a strong female lead who tries to break free of the constraints and limitations placed on women of her time. I found her works to be different from other female authors we have studied thus far. In her works, she seemed more daring and the content of her work inspired me more then the structure and diction. I have had personally observed that many of the other female authors have put more emphasis on the eloquence of their writing and tried (some failing) to create their works deeper then they may needed to be, in efforts to prove themselves among male authors. With Barrett Browning, I felt she did not do this, her writing seemed to be more effortless and natural, she did not hold back on subject matter and I admired that in her.
Her epic poem “Aurora Leigh was inspiring where she insulted the place women had in society. I was really drawn to the main characters disgust over her aunt’s expectations of how she should act like a “lady” and the lessons she should be taught. Aurora felt her Aunt had been deprived of living a real life and that she was blind to the opportunities which she was missing out on.

“She had lived, we’ll say,
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which not life at all
(But that, she had not lived enough to know)”

Aurora felt that many women were deprived of living real lives and were unable to have some of the greatest experiences because they viewed their purpose as merely being polite and serving men. She linked this lifestyle to living as a “caged bird” who was being restricted to flying their own direction. Aurora did not feel that women really had a role in society they were there simply to sew, cook, and teach, but never to learn or think.

“The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean,
And sleep, and dream of something we are not”

Aurora would not settle for this kind of life and neither would her author. Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew that there was no need for women to live life in the shadows. She did not suppress her thoughts or dreams of having more. I found reading her work particularly admirable since she fought for all the rights that women in society today are born with. It is hard to imagine a life where women were seen as secondary to men, even though I know it was not long before I was born that this happened. I look up to the women like Barrett Browning who fought for the equality women deserve.