NAME: BEBY FEBRI KURNIA NIM: 110705054 THE STUDY OF POETRY CLASS B An analysis of Elizabeth Browning poem: The

Cry of The children Listen To the Cry of the Children

Child labour for entire worldwide is the practice where children engage in economic activity, on part-time or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development. Poverty, lack of good schools and growth of informal economy are considered as the most important causes of child labour. Child labour includes working children who are below a certain minimum age. This practice is going on since long and is one of the worst forms of child exploitation. Child labour not only causes damage to a childs physical and mental health but also keep him deprive of his basic rights to education, development, and freedom. According to statistics provided by UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 years employed in child labour worldwide and this figure is continuously increasing. Child labour is not only affecting under-developed and developing countries, but developed countries are also facing this though the rate is comparatively very less. Child labor in Asia accounts for the highest percentage of child labour (61%) followed by Africa (32%). The history of child labor can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, when very young children were forced to work in coal mines and factories. When the industrial revolution first came to Britain and the U.S., there was a high demand for labor. Families quickly migrated from the rural farm areas to the newly industrialized cities to find work. Once they got there, things did not look as bright as they did. To survive in even the lowest level of poverty, families had to have every able member of the family go to work. This led to
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the high rise in child labor in factories. Children were not treated well, overworked, and underpaid for a long time before anyone tried to change things for them. The time of troubles as the early Victorian period has been aptly termed, earns its title from the social conflicts and economic strife associated with Englands pioneering into the Industrial revolution. This time of revolution, however, was not limited to industry, for the ensuing effects of such immense change in Englands way of life ignited a flame of indignation among writers of this new age in literary history and resulted in new forms of expression, the Victorian writers were more concerned with the present social issues, unlike the previous Romantics reflection on the past. Two hundred years ago, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote about the effects of child labour during the Industrial Revolution in her poem The Cry of the Children: 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. Form The Cry of the Children takes on a narrative form, walking the reader through the life of the children that were forced to work in this period. In addition, the poem adopts a rhyme scheme similar to that of a Shakespearean Sonnet, without the couplet to finalise each stanza. Structure The poem is comprised of 13 stanzas, and each individual stanza is made up of 12 lines. The lines within these stanzas are rhyming couplets, and the rhyme scheme is a,b,a,b. These long stanzas could be mirroring the laborious tasks these children were faced with. Language The imagery used in this poem is very stark and bleak - Elizabeth Barrett Browning does not try to 'doll up' the poem, or try and make child labour sound anything but horrific. In addition, she also features the children's dialogue, which gives the poem more authenticity. This style called dramatic monologue where there are some dialogues in the poem but at the fact there is only one speaker. This style appears in some parts of thirteen parts poem. ."Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
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"Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !" Few paces have we taken, yet are weary Our grave-rest is very far to seek !... Part III, line 5-8 "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 part IV, line 1-4

In the poem E.Browning shows and criticises the sorrow of the children in those years, how the exploitation was managed in coal mines and factories. She also pointed out the way children had no infancy and why they seek for death as a relief of that worlds pressure. The topic about disbelief in God needs also to be remarked. She also questions the confidence in the future and in the nation as well.

In the first stanza Browning begins to paint the sad lives of Englands poor children. She argues that the young animalslambs, birds, fawns and even flowersare free to frolic, while the young children are made to suffer. They lost their childhoodtheir play time because of the poverty. They experience the sorrow that cannot be healed by mothers love and power. Instead the only way to run from the sorrow is if they were die. 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 ! Part 1, line 1-10 At the end of the part I Browning used Irony as a satire to the readers. The irony helps to stressing her idea, to make people realize what happened in children in the society at that time. In that last part one lines she emphasize the idea by using words weeping and free. As we know that weeping and free are very contrast idea.
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They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free. Part 1, line 11-12

In second part, she even confronts these influential individuals and asks them if they
"question the young children in sorrow why their tears are falling so?" (part II, line 1) Browning is blatantly calling attention to the neglect the owners of these places of work have displayed to the children they force into employment . She wants them to realize how badly they are exploiting the children and shes attempting to convince them to change their ways. She also used the irony at the end of this part by using words weeping and happy.

..Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland ?

In the next part, Browning explain how cruel the world to the children. World means people who employed the children in the harsh condition. Their happy childhood had been stolen for they have to work in the mines and factories. They become tortured for they lack of capabilities and strength to face it. For that reason, they are children but the grief of a man had been reflected in their little face. 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

In part four, Browning impresses the image of a young girls death upon the minds of her audience. This picture brings to life the hardships and cruelty which these young child endure in their workplaces. It emphasizes the heartlessness of the employers to be so unconcerned for the well-being of the their workers. 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, That is clearly depicts that although this little girl named Alice is dead, she is happier. She is no longer suffering, she is not laboring away under harsh conditions; this little girl, like so many before her are now free from the mistreatment that they endured.
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We also found that the children are actually saying that it is better to die than to withstand being overworked. This positive image makes the reader angry and sad at the same time, but knowing that the children are at a better place makes the poem extremely powerful. In this part we are also can see that death is the only way out for the children. They would rather die than live in such a harsh condition. In conclusion, Brownings poem The Cry of the Children greatly depicts the harsh reality of child labor that occurred in the nineteenth century. At the time, this poem would have been seen as a warning telling the world that this is wrong and should be stopped. 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 !" In next part, Browning want to show up that the children are fed up with the coal mines, they are tired and weary. They have no joy of living, its always the same: the routine of starting work early in the morning and finishing it late in the evening when there were no sunlight, no playtime, no happiness. Actually Browning want to tell us the impact of the condition, live and work all day in the coal mines and factories, has destroyed children body and soul for working in such harsh condition can impact their psychology and mental development. "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.

In the next parts, the relationship between God and child, rather than machine and child, is the focus of analysis. Browning commands that the children be steered to God, but the children bitterly reply: ". 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 !

This line only reiterates the ignorance that is going on within the country. The children pray to God and receive no relief. They even cry to those they see everyday, and nothing is done. They figure that if those they encounter everyday cannot acknowledge their weeping that why would God be anymore likely to do so. In this part, Browning also depicts how poverty can impact to someone belief. Poverty has made them think that the God does not really exist, because if the God is really exist the God will not let poverty touch them for the God is the Almighty. The poet cheers them up and tells them to pray, to believe in Him, but they dont believe any more and dont expect a better life. We can imagine the desperation of the children, adults were also desperate and maybe religion was their only solution. In the next part the children describe how when they pray the only words they know to pray are "Our Father." This is meant to show the audience how uneducated these children are as a result of being forced into work. This is a blaring signal for those in government to realize that these children are being deprived of their right to an education. ...We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'

Part eleven returns to the childrens lack of faith in God. They express how "His image is the master Who commands us to work." They have been convinced into believing that is the will of God that they suffer and labor as they do. They would have faith in God, only "grief has made us unbelieving." In the next stanza Browning writes of how the children work such long hours laboring in the mines and factories of these industrial times. "They have never seen sunshine," because they are up long before the sun and are home after it sets or because they are cooped up in the
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depths of darkness in the coal mines of the regions. Browning wants to emphasize the long hours these children are forced to work and the lives they are losing doing it too. Although they are only children, their experiences, as dismal and rough as they are, have taught them "the grief of man," with the time spent growing up into manhood. In closing, Browning addresses the government saying, " How long, O cruel nation, will you stand, to move the world, on a childs heart?" This sentence in the final paragraph of the poem is the final plea with the country of England to reform the working conditions of their young and save the lives of the underprivileged children. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this poem when "when government investigations had exposed the exploitation of children employed in coal mines and factories." She referred to this as "appalling use of child labour", and she refused to not be heard when she openly expressed her views about it. In the time of the Industrial Revolution, the children of the families who moved to the crowded cities had their work situation go from bad to worse. In rural areas, children would have worked long hours with hard work for their families farms, but in the cities, the children worked longer hours with harder work for large companies. Harsher treatment, fewer rewards and more sickness and injury came from poorly regulated child labor. Child labor today is still apart of many economies. Child labor came from the Industrial Revolution and is still around today.