While analyzing a poem of children exploitation I found out some interesting facts that happened to the children at that era. I feel that through the analysis of this poem I could know the facts that I didn’t pay attention to before. How children treated in Industrial Revolution were really horrible. It’s still happening right now, though. Capitalism is awful. I can't imagine how people could be treated like that, just as awful as slavery. I hate all kinds of injustice and don't understand why people could be so unfair.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The poem entitled The Cry of The Children is a poem written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1842. It is a poem about children exploitation. Elizabeth also had concern in social injustice, slavery, and women’s right. She was born in England in 1806 and lived until 1861, which is Victorian Era. In this era, there was Industrial Revolution where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport, and technology had significant effects on the social, economic, and cultural conditions starting in England and spread to the world. Industrialization created many factories and also capitalism.
According to Karl Marx, a German philosopher who wrote the book Des Capital and father of Marxism, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois is the social class that owns the capital of production in capitalist society. On the other hand, the proletariat is the class that doesn’t have ownership and capital, so they sell their labor power for wages or salary. The bourgeois or the employer seeks to increase the productivity of the worker to gain more profit by making them work harder and longer for less income.
According to Marxist theory of exploitation, profits and wages are in inverse proportion. With the industrial revolution and increase in machinery, less physical strength is required so women and children were recruited into factories because they could be paid less than men. The four-year-old children had to work in coal mines or factories. They have to pick up cotton under the machine, working 16 hours a day. Some lost hands, head, or limbs, blind or burnt, others were crushed under the machines, and some were infected by the poisonous fume or dust.
The writer chooses this poem because children exploitation in Industrial Revolution has been great concern in the society. The writer wants to analyze furthermore the problem of exploitation by using Marxism approach to find out how this poem portrays the condition of those children in capitalism era.
CHAPTER II
ANALYSIS
This poem contains the thought of the author and the children’s heart voices. The first four lines explain how they suffer for this condition.
Stanza 1, line 1-4:
“Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.”
The children are crying because they have to suffer for years. It reflects the Industrial Revolution that takes time from 18th century until 19th century. They even suffer for child labor before that, but Industrial Revolution make it worse thousands time. They are leaning their young heads show that they are very young child because at that time, children as young as four-year-old are employed. Even after they lean their heads against their mothers, it cannot stop their tears. It shows how their mothers can’t do anything to end their children sorrow, because they are the proletariat in capitalism era. They are the lower class who has no authority and power. Trapped in the poverty, they have to sell their labor power to earn money, so do their children.
Line 5-12:
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
This is the symbol of the condition supposed to happen. The imagery is used to show that the children are supposed to be like this, when the young lambs are bleating in the meadows. The young lambs are supposed to bleat, it’s their natural action. They are bleating in the meadows, their place they are supposed to be. The young birds are chirping, yes that is what the young birds should do. They do it in the nest, yes that is the place where they should be. So does the young fawns and the young flowers. These are the comparison to describe the condition of these labor children. They are supposed to play at their young ages, playing and studying with their friends, at school, at home, at where they should be. On the other hand, the fact is they have to work in the factories and mine, the place which is dangerous for them. Their playing time is taken, their freedom is taken. “In the country of the free” is the irony for this condition, because the children lost their freedom in their own country.
Line 13-16:
Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so ?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago —
These lines reveal how uncommon this situation is. This condition is supposed to be questioned, to be stopped, but yet it keeps on going. The author shows how the old man may regret his past, but these children are not supposed to weep over their sorrow. They don’t deserve this.
Line 17-20:
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland ?
These are also the comparison for the children. It is the things that happen just the way they are, when the old tree is leafless, and the old year ends in the frost. If the old wound has stricken it will be sore, and that the old hope is hard to be lost, these are the imagery of the things that symbolize common things, the fates, the destiny. The author asks to compare to this children condition, which is not supposed to be neither their fate nor destiny, so it needs to be questioned, because it is not a common thing that should be let happens. Moreover, it is in their happy Fatherland. The word “happy” is an irony, also, because that word is so far from them. This is the condition when Marx asked the proletariat to unite and demand their rights, because in their own fatherland they can’t get their own freedom.
Stanza 2, Line 25-30:
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy —
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
"Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !"
Here they stated that this earth is dreary, yet their young feet are very weak. Their feet are young, it hasn’t been strong enough just like adult’s feet, yet it has to be worse because of being exploited.
Stanza 3, Line 31-36:
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek !
Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold —
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old !"
They said they are tired to find their grave-rest, because it’s so far. It shows how they think death will be the end of this sorrow, how death will solve anything. But yet it seems so far, it is how they represent this misery conditions, it seems like so far to reach the end of the sorrow, just like they have no idea when it will end, when their sorrow will end.
Stanza 4, Line37-44:
"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time !
Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her —
Was no room for any work in the close clay :
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.
This is the contradiction for the previous lines. First they said the grave-rest is so far away, because they associate death with relief. Now, the death symbolizes the true death in fact, and the children said it may happen that they die before their time. It reflects the dangerous conditions they have to face everyday. There are many children suffer for lung cancer, heart disease, phossy jaw (a disease that began with toothache and swelling of the gums and jaw. The lower jaw was more commonly affected but sometime the upper jaw also was attacked. It was most commonly seen in workers in the match industry in the 19th and early 20th century.), and other physical defects. They tell the story about Little Alice who died last year.
Line 45-52:
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries ;
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,—
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime !
It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time !"
This description shows how Little Alice is happy after her death. She never cries and the smile is growing in her eyes. “Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,” shows that she never smiles and looks happy like that before, while she was working. At the end of second stanza, the children added, that it’s good if they die before their time. The hard life has made them wants to end their misery as soon as possible, although if it is death, it sounds good for them.
Stanza 5, Line 53-659:
Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have !
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city —
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do —
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through !
These children think that death is the best to have. By this thought, they protect themselves from sadness and fear. The author asks them to go out, from the place where they don’t belong. The children should experience happy moments, where they can play and laugh aloud.
Line 60-64:
But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine ?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!
Here the children talk about the bourgeois who make them experience staying in dark of the coal-shadows, while the bourgeois live in pleasures and all the good things. The bourgeois exploit the proletariat to work hard, more than they can do, and pay them low, less than they deserve. To gain more profit, the bourgeois also hires children, to reduce the expense for wages and salary.
The sixth stanza tells about the children who lose their hope. It can be seen from line 67 & 68, “If we cared for any meadows, it were merely to drop down in them and sleep.” and line 71 & 72, “And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, the reddest flower would look as pale as snow.” These children have to wake up since 4 a.m. in the morning and work until 8 p.m. in the evening. They are sleepy and tired, yet still have to work. They carry their burden to the workplace where they have to do the same dangerous thing everyday, as it is seen in line 73-76, “For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, through the coal-dark, underground —Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron, in the factories, round and round.” They keep doing the same endless thing day by day, wake up only to work and at night they sleep just to wake up again the following day and do the same miserable thing.
The seventh stanza describes about the condition while these children are working. What they do and how they feel. When all the tools and animals and nature are changing, but they feel nothing changes in their life, it’s just like that with no end. The eighth stanza is when the author advises these children not to give up and surrender to God, to call God to ask for help. Yet the children have lost their hope and faith. In the tenth stanza they say when they are weeping and sobbing aloud, no human hear them, and only pass by. In the eleventh stanza they say they have prayed, but God doesn’t hear them. Line 121-124, “’Our Father!’ If He heard us, He would surely, for they call him good and mild, answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, ‘Come and rest with me, my child’. ‘But no!’ say the children, weeping faster. He is speechless like a stone.” They say tears have made them blind.
Stanza 13, Line 153-160:
“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart, —
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ?
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,
And your purple shews your path ;
But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath !”
Here it’s portrayed as if the children ask for how long they have to suffer. They call England the cruel nation because of the capitalism, and state that this era won’t remain forever. They mention how their blood splash, while cursing this nation.
According to Marx’s analysis if the capitalist economy, it’s believed that capital produces profit, land produces rent, and labor produces wages, each getting fair share. It was natural for landowners and factories owners to make more profit. However in fact, it’s found that in order to gain as much profit as they can, the factories owners exploit the workers to work longer and harder without equal payment. It can be seen in the condition in England where the savage exposure of exploitation happens in the growing factories and industrial enterprises, includes children. If each getting fair share, why these factories owners employ the children? Because they know they can pay them cheaper. Marx said that workers actually have to have freedom to choose the work they want, the job they wish to do. Meanwhile, the workers still have no capital or land or factory to run, so they only can work as labor as the only choice. This shows how the capitalism put the proletariat in the lowest stage of freedom.
Even if they want to choose, they have no choice, so do the children. In this poem, the children are the representation of the unfair condition. In larger scale, actually this poem represented all proletariat, children and adults. They suffer for the same sorrow, due to the poor work condition and the effect of industrialization.
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
All in thirteen stanzas, the author portrayed the condition of capitalism that exploited lower class people, focused on the children. This condition happens in Industrial Revolution era in Britain, where the bourgeois as the landowners or factories owners employ the proletariat as labors. They have to work as labors because they have nothing to earn money; they have neither capital nor land. They only can sell their labor power. The bourgeois’ goal is to earn as much profit as they can, so they also hire children and women to make them get more surplus, because it’s cheaper. This condition creates great suffer for the proletariat, especially the children, as it’s represented in this poem. From the analysis, it can be seen how the children have to work 16 hours a day, from 4 a.m. in the morning. They are so young, even the four-year-old children have to work. They have no time to play or study, because they do the same dangerous thing everyday. Death is near to them, as if it’s in front of their eyes, yet they kind of hope for it. Because of the desperateness of endless suffer; they think death will be the great relief for them. They have no choice, so do the other lower class people. It leads to the thought that in capitalism era, the lower class will always become the powerless while the upper class is always powerful.
APPENDIX
The Cry of the Children
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so ?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago —
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland ?
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy —
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
"Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !"
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek !
Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold —
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old !"
"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time !
Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her —
Was no room for any work in the close clay :
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.'
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries ;
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,—
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime !
It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time !"
Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have !
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city —
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do —
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through !
But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine ?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!
"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap —
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping —
We fall upon our faces, trying to go ;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,
Through the coal-dark, underground —
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.
"For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, —
Their wind comes in our faces, —
Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling —
Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, —
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling —
All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! —
And all day, the iron wheels are droning ;
And sometimes we could pray,
'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)
'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' "
Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth —
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth !
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals —
Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! —
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
As if Fate in each were stark ;
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.
Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray —
So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.
They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word !
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door :
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more ?
" Two words, indeed, of praying we remember ;
And at midnight's hour of harm, —
'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'
And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within His right hand which is strong.
'Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely
(For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
'Come and rest with me, my child.'
"But, no !" say the children, weeping faster,
" He is speechless as a stone ;
And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to ! " say the children,—"up in Heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find !
Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving —
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."
Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach ?
For God's possible is taught by His world's loving —
And the children doubt of each.
And well may the children weep before you ;
They are weary ere they run ;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun :
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ;
They sink in the despair, without its calm —
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, —
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, —
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
No dear remembrance keep,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly :
Let them weep ! let them weep !
They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they think you see their angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity ;—
"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, —
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ?
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,
And your purple shews your path ;
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath !"
very good analysis,thank you.
ReplyDeletesuha