Both William Blake and Robert Browning present the control institutions or powerful figures hold over women as leading to violence (either committed against, or by these women) to highlight the disastrous effects of female oppression in their respective societies. Both Blake and Browning hint at the destructive and violent consequences of the oppression of women through the use of (voiceless) female characters in their poems. While Blake’s “youthful harlot” takes out her desperation on her own “new-born infant” (a symbol of perfect innocence) by blasting it with curses, Browning implies a more direct violence against women through the sinister presentation of his persona, the Duke, who seems to wield ultimate control over his wife: the ability to take her life if he so chooses. Blake’s presentation of a seemingly immoral “harlot” presents readers with a moral dilemma: it is clear that her behaviour towards her infant is wrong, but - given the oppression and control the institutions of power have over her (and thus her limited freedom) - perhaps Blake is asking the reader to apportion blame instead to the systemic failures of a society that leads women to be in such desperate, impoverished, situations. Indeed, the fact that these “harlots” - young women forced into prostitution by an unsupportive state - are walking the “midnight streets” suggests that their plight is endless, that the oppression of people, and especially women, is round-the-clock. Browning also hints at the total and all-consuming nature of the oppression of women when he has his persona suggest that his “last” duchess suffered the ultimate price for disobeying his wishes: she paid with her life. With his implied power over life and death, Browning presents the Duke as having the arrogant and hubristic desire to have God’s power, but unlike God, man does not have the moral capacity to wield that much power. Like Blake, Browning is suggesting that when people assume too much power they end up controlling and mistreating those without power: here, powerful men oppressing women.
Commentary:
- Paragraph begins with a topic sentence
- Topic sentence directly addresses the question (answer always address the idea of “control”)
- Topic sentence has a narrower focus than the thesis statement (focus is on “women”)
- The whole paragraph is related to the topic sentence
- Paragraph includes multiple relevant references to both poems
- All references are linked to the question, and support the argument of my topic sentence