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.
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