{"id":202,"date":"2023-02-17T20:26:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T20:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=202"},"modified":"2023-02-17T20:26:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T20:26:27","slug":"wordsworth-wollstonecraft-and-the-female-vagrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/02\/17\/wordsworth-wollstonecraft-and-the-female-vagrant\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordsworth, Wollstonecraft, and The Female Vagrant"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cThe Female Vagrant\u201d tells the first-person narrative of a woman whose life and family have been destroyed by war. Wordsworth details the destructions of war through a feminine lens and emphasizes the lasting ramifications of war on the family and woman. By doing this, Wordsworth presents war not as a singular event on a battlefield, but as an event that harms all<\/em> involved at various points in time.<\/p>\n

In Wordsworth\u2019s poem, even before the husband is officially sent to war, the family is facing destruction. Wordsworth writes, \u201cMy husband\u2019s arms now only served to strain \/ Me and his children, hungering in his view\u201d (lines 302-303). The grammar and line structure of this sentence is particularly interesting. On the one hand, one could read this line as the narrator saying the husband\u2019s labor has forced the family to relocate. They are straining, or pulling, themselves to move to America. Alternatively, this line could be read as the husband\u2019s arms no longer having the ability to be around his children and wife. His body is no longer meant for love, only work. He is property. This leaves the wife and children begging for his attention in his view. <\/em>Read either way, the husband can see his family, but due to the demand for his labor, he is unable to properly fill the role of loving father and husband.<\/p>\n

The concept of the body being strained for physical labor is present in Wollstonecraft\u2019s A Vindication of the Rights of Men. <\/em>Wollstonecraft writes that for the poor man who has no liberty or property, \u201cHis property is in his nervous arms\u201d (125). Wollstonecraft follows with the image of these arms pulling at a \u201cstrange rope\u201d highlighting the absurdity of this labor. As Wollstonecraft and Wordsworth point out, the poor man becomes property of the nation.<\/p>\n

However, Wordsworth goes even further to suggest that the entire<\/em> family is part of the war effort. Each member of the family is partaking in some form of labor, even if it is solely emotional. The second stanza ends with the line, \u201cWe reached the western world a poor devoted crew\u201d (line 304). The words \u2018poor\u2019 and \u2018devoted\u2019 following one another is crucial. The family could be poor in the sense of not having wealth or in the sense of being afflicted with a terrible situation. Either way, this family\u2019s devotion is forced. Moreover, the woman refers to her family as a \u2018crew.\u2019 The female narrator is acknowledging that herself and her children are as much a part of the war effort as her husband. Each member of the family has made a sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Wollstonecraft calls attention to the concept of the family as a unit or crew. She writes that the \u201cdistress of many industrious mothers, whose helpmates <\/em>have been torn from them [\u2026] were regarded as \u201cvulgar sorrows\u201d (125). Though Wollstonecraft is exposing the mindset of the rich, she still regards the family as a unit.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this unit does not remain intact for our female vagrant. Wordsworth writes, \u201cAll perished, all, in one remorseless year\u201d (line 320). The poem then takes an especially dark turn as the woman returns to England only to discover a nation she does not recognize. As heartbreaking as the second half of Wordsworth\u2019s poem is, it is crucial to recognize that the poem continues even after<\/em> the narrator\u2019s children and husband die. She has to go on living. The effects of war do not end once the fighting on the battlefield is over. War has never-ending consequences, absurd heartbreaking beginnings, and demands labor from all as both Wordsworth and Wollstonecraft detail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cThe Female Vagrant\u201d tells the first-person narrative of a woman whose life and family have been destroyed by war. Wordsworth details the destructions of war through a feminine lens and emphasizes the lasting ramifications of war on the family and woman. By doing this, Wordsworth presents war not as a singular event on … Continue reading Wordsworth, Wollstonecraft, and The Female Vagrant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}