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The Rights Of Women By Anna Barbauld

Decent Essays

Anna Barbauld’s “The Rights of Women” (1792), is an intricate poem that was written with a distinct perspective that many female poets would have taken during the Romantics era. The poem begins with a very passive aggressive yet persuasive invitation to take action on the way women are perceived. Barbauld’s feministic voice is heard throughout the entirety of the poem as she is trying to empower women with her passionate words, yet by reading the last two stanzas we realizes she contradicts her concept on her own feministic beliefs and thoughts. Reexamining the poem reveals a sarcastic tone other than the devotee-like tone that we had assumed was being interpreted as. One can conclude that Anna Barbauld's poem is not about feminism but is …show more content…

Barbauld’s internal struggles against the notions of equality is resonated through her sarcastic tone. Barbauld’s contradictions continue throughout the totality of the poem; She implies, “Try all that wit and art suggest to bend / Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;” (17-18). She advocates that women should use their cleverness and their slyness to dominate over men. Because of her other insinuations on her argument on equality, we can interpret that she proclaims this is the only way women will ever be equal to men. This conjecture is reinforced with the rest of the stanza which proclaims, “Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend; / Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.” (19-20). Barbaud proposes that if women dominate over men, which is her opinion of what equality is, they will never be able to be friends with men because of the constant state of fear of men overthrowing women. Consequently, the last line summons her views with a dark and difficult conclusion, but she makes it very clear on what feminism represents and what it will conclude to in her own words. This stanza created a much more dramatic and dismal view to what her philosophy is towards equality than the first four stanzas that resonated with a call-to-arms tone. This could explain why Barbauld couldn’t decipher the difference between extremism and change, and why she felt as though peace would be the only solution to the fight between equality

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