Aurora Leigh

On page 540 of our text, Elizabeth Barrett Browning states, "She lived A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage, Accounting that to leap from perch to perch Was act and joy enough for any bird. Dear heaven, how silly are the things that live In thickets, and eat berries! (540)." This is Browning's way of pointing out how woman had a life that was confined and was limited to the duties that a woman was expected to carry out. In these days, there was not much opportunity for women to expand there horizons or do things that they would want to pursue. Browning is a big oponent of society's view of women, and many of her writings focus on the evils that are prevalent in society. It is an injustice that women faced without any means of stopping it. The cage is society's hold on the life of all women, and no matter how bad the woman may want to be free, she has to constantly do what is expected of her in order to a part of anything at all. She can never escape her entrapped nature no matter what happens. This is the evil that Browning wants society to do away with.