During the Industrial Revolution, children were often forced to work in factories for long hours. Children gave companies cheap labor and sometimes children had to work for 10 or 12 hours a day, even though they were only 7 or 8 years old. The factory work robbed children of their childhoods. Instead of going to school, playing, and enjoying the sunshine, these children were trapped by work. In the poem “The Cry of the Children” Elizabeth Browning reveals how these children were mentally and physically destroyed from child labor, and how the factory life leaves children mourning for a normal childhood. The author uses literary devices such as diction, imagery and dialogue to portray these themes The author uses imagery to show children …show more content…
Browning uses diction and imagery to express heavy emotion and create sympathy for the children, describing how they “cannot stop their tears” and that they are “weeping Into the playtime of others, in the country of the free”(11-12). The children are weeping because everyone other than them is growing and enjoying a fun free outdoor life, while they are in a small, cramped workspace environment and are being pushed their physical and mental limits by the factory. Even though they live in the “country of the free,” they are not free to be children. This leaves them mourning to be set free and to have a normal childhood and grow just like any other thing in nature. Browning demonstrates the desire of the children to escape the factory as they pray “Oh ye wheels ( breaking out into a moan) stop, be silent for today”(87-88). The kids want to be free so bad that they beg for the machines to stop and they can't stand the constant noise and movement without going outside to play. The children are trapped in the factories. Browning uses this very emotional and sympathetic dialogue to appeal to the reader to help these children get free of factory …show more content…
The author uses the literary device dialog to terrify the reader. The author describes the children as mentally destroyed when using the dialogue. The children reveal how mentally exhausted the are as “[They] fall on [their] faces, trying to go; end, underneath [their] heavy eyelids drooping,...all day, [they] drag [their] burden to tiring through the cool, dark Underground or, all day, [they] drive the wheels of iron, in the factories round and round” (65-74). The words “dark” and “drooping” shows the theme children are mentally destroyed by factory life because they are “drooping” with the weight of their work on them. Images such as ‘all day we drive the wheels of iron” displays that the children have no free time and are working very long hours, and show that they are mentally ruined by the long hours of work.. Another piece of evidence that the kids are being mentally ruined is the image that they are “spinning on blindly in the dark” which means that the kids are obviously working well past night time and while should be sleeping or actually working. “Blindly further shows exhaustion, as if they don’t even see the work in front of them anymore. They just keep working like robots. The author uses this dialogue and imagery to inform the readers of the troubles of being the working child faced during the Industrial
Children were working to have an income to help support their families during this era. They worked in factories, coal mines, and on farms. The factories that they worked in often worked the children as vigorously as the adults. They were not allowed breaks and worked over 69 hours per week (Source 3). “The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy” by Frances Milton Trollope, illustrated these conditions. A child’s death from working was the most common way to die in this century (Source 1).
Florence Kelley’s speech regarding child labor elicits pity from the audience. She describes in detail the hours and conditions under which the children labor, and this appeals to pathos because her audience will be able to feel sorry for and sympathize with the working children. In order to evoke feelings of compassion, Kelley continuously repeats the images of children working throughout the night while capable adults get to rest peacefully. The adults would be compelled to imagine themselves in the children’s shoes working for endless hours. Kelley’s use of repetition and imagery in her speech encourages the audience to have pity on the young, innocent, and laboring children. Her anecdote about a child working as soon as she turns thirteen
The Author uses personification, symbolism, and foreshadowing to convey the deeper meaning of how too much freedom may be bad for kids. This is shown when the author uses Personification to help
Additionally, the power of love is furthered as an intertextual connection between the texts through the explorations of browning and gatsby's aspirations. Both borwning and gatsby's hopes were transformed due to their love. Browning refelcts on her personal context in the early sonnets to demonstrate her former lack of hope. Her reference to the 'sweet sad years' in sonnet 1 highlights the distressed nature of her life and how death and sadness were prevalent in her life before love. Her declaration in her final sonnet expresses her belif of the verlasting unconitional love she is experienceing when she exclaims '...
With the use of characterization, Bradbury portrays the lack of feelings and laziness that comes with technology usage. Peter and Wendy are characterized as insensitive and violent. Their father, George, starts to notice that the nursery had a strange tendency towards death and killing; naturally, he is thinking that “they were awfully young, Wendy and Peter, for death thoughts.” The nursery has visibly shown what they were thinking about, building an unhealthy obsession with the “death thoughts.” Along with the violent thought patterns, the machines they are provided with has made them very lazy, not wanting “to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?” Peter has become indolent and is misses the experience of accomplishment after a job well done, or the disappointment of failure even after trying extraordinarily hard. Instead, he just wants to constantly be entertained by his technology. As the parents realize all of what is going on, they remove the technology from the house, angering the children. Wendy and Peter have just killed their parents, they “looked up and
Child Labor in the 1700s and 1800s was a definite form of abuse to children because they were often severely underpaid, worked much longer hours than even an adult should, and were often exposed to harsh and dangerous conditions. Children were on average five times cheaper to employ then adults, and were expected to work the same hours- which, in mining communities, could mean 14 hour days (Britain , Great. “Report on child labour, 1842.” The British Library, The British Library, 6 Feb. 2014, www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-child-labour-1842).
Throughout the book, the narrator refers to his readers as “my dear young readers” and “children,” as yet another way to exude control over the readers. The narrator uses endearments such as “But as for you, my dear young readers…” (6) and “But, my dears,…” (22) as a form of power. In his own own life, he feels powerless due to the tight hold the government has over his life. He feels stuck in a continuos cycle, repeating the same day over and over, with no control over his life, therefore he exerts the little power he has onto his readers. Children symbolize innocence and naiveness, so when the narrator refers to his readers as “children” he feels powerful. Although the readers could be adults, by calling them children he feeds his ego, making himself feel “bigger” than his readers in a world where he is at the bottom of society.
During the Industrial Revolution and in the Romantic Period, child labor was very common for most of the children that lived during that time. Many of the families were very poor and needed all the extra money that they could get. Children were sent to work in various workplaces such as factories, mines, and even mills. The children received little or no pay from their jobs. The workplaces required extremely long work hours usually from sun up to sun down with very few breaks in between. Most children also received very harsh treatment if they slacked off of their work. The owners of the companies gave little or no attention to the children. They wanted the production to be made each day no matter how hard it was on them.
Child labor during the industrial revolution was difficult for the kids. Children had to work hard in factories and mines. They didn’t get to go to school they had to work instead. They didn’t have the life of normal kids.
Children were wanted in factories for many different reasons. Child labor in the industrial revolution was cruel and atrocious. Their working conditions were dreadful and their punishments
Throughout early eighteenth hundreds child labor was a major issue in American society. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was prominent in families of lower class because this would help add to what was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. These
One of the darkest parts of the Industrial Revolution was child labor. Children under the age of 18 were important in jobs such as sweatshops, iron factories, and shipyards. Many young boys had also worked in coal mines (Nardo, Workers 58). At the age of 10, or even younger, boys would help out with craftsman. Both boys and girls helped their family with chores as soon as they could (Woog 24). About 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Trafficked is the exploitation of children purposely (Manheimer 19). Children pretended they weren’t working or they would hide if the labor inspector showed up, but the inspectors did not visit home factories. Children helped with small tasks throughout a fourteen to eighteen hours day (Woog 24). Boundaries such as fences, gates, and locks were all installed in the work area. The main reason was because the children would try to escape (Nardo Workers and Lives 63-64). ADD CLINCHER
Children were forced to work for long hours and as hard as they could and they were treated with little, if any, respect. The working lives of children were very inhumane which emphasises that they did not benefit from the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, after exhausting hours of work, children had to face even more unpleasant circumstances in the homes in which they
Browning’s use of imagery goes hand in hand with her use of symbolism throughout the
During the growth of the Industrial Revolution many children were put to work in factories to increase production of the goods needed to be produced for the betterment of that country’s economy. Many kids worked in cotton mill factories and or oil cringe buildings. In the document analyzed titled Report on Committee on Children In Manufacturing published in 1816, England. The article is a testimony by Robert Owen and Sir Robert Peel. The testimony given by Robert Owen and Sir Robert Peel which by the wayside were Utopian socialist and a Conservative parliamentarian were fighting to enact laws that made factory conditions better for kids. Furthermore, this testimony given by both notable people poured out the horrible conditions of which children