FREE ESSAY ON THEME ON EMILY DICKISON

THEME ON EMILY DICKISON

As a female in a highly patriarchal society, Anne Bradstreet uses the reverse
psychology technique to prove the point of her belief of unfair and unequal
treatment of women in her community. Women who wrote stepped outside
their appropriate sphere, and those who actually published their work
frequently faced social censure. Compounding this social pressure, many
women faced crushing workloads and struggled with lack of leisure for
writing. Others suffered from an unequal access to education, while others
were dealing with the sense of intellectual inferiority offered to them from
virtually every authoritative voice, that voice usually being male. Bradstreet
was raised in an influential family, receiving an extensive education with
access to private tutors and the Earl of Lincoln's large library. She was part
of an influential family who encouraged her writing and circulated it in
manuscript with pride. That kind of private support did much to offset the
possibility of public disapproval. Bradstreet believed that women in her
society were treated unfairly, and that gender should be insignificant. In her
Prologue she addresses conflict and struggle, expressing her opinion toward
women's rights, implying that gender is unimportant and male dominance is
wrong. Bradstreet asserts the rights of women to learning and expression of
thought, addressing broad and universal themes. The Prologue has a humble
tone with slightly hidden surprises, containing a muted declaration of
independence from the past and a challenge to male authority. Bradstreet also
uses a rather apologetic tone to draw in the reader so that they will form an
interest in her writing despite her gender. In the beginning she refers to
wars, captains, and epics, written specifically by male writers, worrying
that her poems will shame the art of poetry. Continuing her self-demotion
with an apologetic tone she talks about the Great Bartas, admiring his
works, and sarcastically admitting that she will never be as talented as he is.
The sarcastic tone of these lines cause the typical reader to reconsider that
maybe women are not as bad as she portrays them to be, which is exactly
what she has schemed for the reader to think. Continuing, Bradstreet
mentions regret for her lack of skill, in which she laments the fact that A
weak or wounded brain admits no cure (stanza 4, line 24). As the reading
progresses, she discusses the prejudice against women, knowing that if she
expresses her true feelings, no one will look at her poem. Stanza 5, lines
25-30 implies that she despises anyone who thinks that women are better as
housewives, and that if their work proves well, men will say it is stolen or is
by chance, explaining unfair treatment of women. Following, she mentions
the Greeks as appreciative of women, blaming the current society for the
manipulation of women. She laments that the Greeks had fewer arguments on
women's rights and were more peaceful, contrasting it with the current values
of society, namely that the Greeks are wrong and women are inferior.
Bradstreet uses sarcasm to express her emotions toward the male dominant
society, saying that men are eternally correct, and women are inferior to
them. She sarcastically says that men are better than women, implying the
exact opposite, that women are in fact, equal in ability. She ends by stating
that she does not think her work is worth a critic's time, telling us that
although she thinks women are not inferior, she cannot do anything about it,
and that her works making men's glist'ring gold [work] but more to shine.
Bradstreet was a very gifted and talented poet, recording early stirrings of
female resistance to a social and religious system that was prevalent at the
time. She used different tones, moods, and sarcasm to bring her poetry to
life, giving a vivid, clearly worded image of what she wants her reader to
know, a strikingly radical notion that her writing could be as competent as
any male's. Although much of her work was conventional puritan poetry, it
shows a sensitivity to beauty that male writers of the time lacked.