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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letitia Elizabeth Landon\u2019s poem \u201cThe Factory\u201d describes the state of childhood in England amidst the mounting issue of child labor, in direct address to the country in accusatory stance towards their lack of sympathetic legislature. The use of second person \u201cyon\u201d in the first line of the poem, \u201cThere rests a shade above yon town\u201d (1) immediately alerts the reader that the speaker is addressing someone specific, other than the general reader. At the end of the poem, Landon closes with the address, \u201cOh England, though thy tribute waves\/Proclaim thee great and free, \/While those small children pine like slaves\/There is a curse on thee!\u201d (89-92). Her invocation of \u201cEngland\u201d itself makes it clear that the entire poem is an accusatory address towards the faulty party, whose inaction directly results in childhood death\u2013a theme continuous throughout the poem. Landon invokes the biblical character Moloch as well, \u201cWe read of Moloch\u2019s sacrifice, \/We sicken at the name, \/And seem to hear the infant cries\u2013 \/And yet we do the same!\u201d (21-24). Moloch is associated with human sacrifice; thus, this allusion demonstrates Landon\u2019s belief that England is sacrificing children to the labor force for the sake of economic productivity. She also highlights their hypocrisy within religion, as they are acting in what the Bible has already represented, and what they have acknowledged, as a sinful manner.<\/p>\n
As I was clicking through stories on my Instagram since Monday of this week, I was unfortunately met with current uses of Landon\u2019s rhetoric, but this time, speaking against gun violence and school shootings in the US. There are many eerily similarities that can be drawn between elements of the \u201cThe Factory\u201d and posts that are circulating on social media to promote sympathy and action towards stricter gun laws. Generally speaking, the access and popularity of written circulations during the Victorian era is comparable to that of information diffused through social media in present day. Essentially everyone in the general public sees and reacts to this messaging, although it may not actually reach or affect the most powerful audience: the lawmakers. I\u2019ve attached a cartoon that I think aligns well with the elements of \u201cThe Factory\u201d. Within the caption \u201cThey just loved their guns more, that\u2019s all\u201d, I perceive \u201cthey\u201d to reference American lawmakers and those who prioritize their gun rights in the US, suggesting a similar sacrifice of children-for-national-values that Landon alludes to in her work. Childhood death and popular religion are present in the cartoon as well, as the children are being addressed by \u201cGod\u201d at what appears to be the gates of Heaven. The cartoon God\u2019s dissociation from the choices of the US in his address to the children demonstrates an argument similar to that of Landon, a divergence from religion which supposedly guides many lawmakers in the country.<\/p>\n
Although centuries apart, both \u201cThe Factory\u201d and this Instagram political cartoon generate sympathy for children who are losing their lives\u2013whether to labor or to violence, assert religious contradictions, and effectively reach a wide audience through their platform, in hopes of instigating social movement. I can only hope that child mortality due to gun violence becomes a vestige of the past for future consumers of such media, just as child labor in the Victorian era has for us as readers of \u201cThe Factory\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Letitia Elizabeth Landon\u2019s poem \u201cThe Factory\u201d describes the state of childhood in England amidst the mounting issue of child labor, in direct address to the country in accusatory stance towards their lack of sympathetic legislature. The use of second person \u201cyon\u201d in the first line of the poem, \u201cThere rests a shade above yon town\u201d … Continue reading Grim Similarities<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","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\/4979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}