Female Rebellion In Aurora Leigh and The Lady in the...

Female Rebellion In Aurora Leigh and The Lady in the Looking-Glass Women of both the ages of Victorian and early Modernism were restricted from education at universities or the financial independence of professionalism. In both ages, women writers often rebelled against perceived female expectations as a result of their oppression. To lead a solitary life as a subservient wife and mother was not satisfactory for writers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf. One of the most popular female poets of the Victorian era, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, illustrated a womans struggle to achieve artistic and economical independence in modern society (Longman P.1858). Many Victorian critics were shocked by Barrett†¦show more content†¦She compares her aunts life to A sort of cage-bird life and views her own rebellion toward the expected role as A wild bird scarcely fledged (P.1866-1867, Ll.305, 311). Auroras aunt tries teaching the role of Victorian women with books dictating if women do not think at all, they may teach thinki ng(P.1869, L. 427). One of the only rights of thinking given to women, was their right to comprehend their husbands (P. 1869, L. 431). The limited rights were not satisfactory for Aurora, who finds a savior to oppression of intellect through poetry. Rebelling against the limited lite rature available, her soul is At poetrys divine first finger-touch, / Let go of convictions and sprang up surprised (P.1872, L.L 850-851). Through Auroras rebellion, she found sanctity in educating herself with poetry. More hardened towards rebellion is the modern character of Isabella; a wealthy spinster who bought this house and collected with her own hands (P.2454), a new concept for women in the age of Modernism. The fact that Isabella has remained unmarried can be thought of as rebellion towards the repression of womens education, world travel and financial freedom of the previous of the still fresh Victorian era. With a husband, Isabella may not of been able to keep these freedoms. Th e speaker views Isabellas freedom from a man as twenty times more passion and experience than those that loves are