Almost any piece of 18th-century British literature that has to do with women's rights and femininity is probably going to touch on the ideas of freedom and confinement, and "The Rights of Woman" is no exception. After all, part of the reason that early feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft wanted better education for women was because most women spent their lives confined to the parlor or to the kitchen, depending on their social class. Better education was a woman's ticket out of the home, if she chose to use it. It would be a ticket to freedom.
Questions About Freedom and Confinement
- What kind of a situation do you imagine the "injured Woman" called on in the first line to be attempting to escape from? What makes you think so?
- What are some of the different kinds of confinement referenced in this poem, either literal or metaphorical?
- Why does the speaker say that women can never "be free" (20)? What do you think of her assessment?
Chew on This
Catch-22 alert. Barbauld shows that by escaping from one type of confinement and asserting themselves to rule over men, women would only find themselves in another type of prison.
Barbauld suggests that women can only find true freedom in the bonds of "mutual love" (32).