Femininity in The Lyrical Ballads

The maternal instinct and passion Wordsworth presents throughout the Lyrical Ballads is described with such intensity that the reader gets the impression Wordsworth was nurturing an obsession with the concept. Losing the maternal figure in his own life could have possibly left Wordsworth craving the attention of a mother, and this undying love between mother and child is often the focal point in his poems. Wordsworth could never truly appreciate the relationship between a mother and child due to lack of experience, and I believe that this profoundly affected him; his affections turned to nature and he clung to it as a form of refuge. The lack of femininity in his life, I believe, left him with a clouded image of women and he often appears to find them inaccessible.

The notion that women were almost inaccessible for Wordsworth is presented in The Idiot Boy. “Poor Betty! It would ease her pain / If she had heart to knock again” provides the reader with the impression that this woman is without a heart, thus having connotations of the inhuman. Here femininity is represented as an alien subject, Wordsworth has little ground to stand on when he describes a woman because the concept is so foreign to him, and the image shown in the poem is almost machine-like. This robotic image could be a reflection of the poet’s opinions on the Industrial Revolution; associating a woman with a machine reiterates the fact that he doesn’t fully understand why these things exist, both industry and women are impossible for him to access, and so he distances himself from them, making them both a fictional concept in his world and once again turning to nature as his solitude. On the other hand, one of Wordsworth’s favourite companions and most trusted friend was his sister Dorothy, a woman he truly respected. This contradicts the idea that he found women inaccessible on the whole. However, being without a mother from being a child could have led Wordsworth into latching onto the nearest feminine figure, in his case, his sister. Their relationship was, famously, a much cherished one; Wordsworth often turning to her for advice with his writing and asking for her to accompany him on his long walks. Overall, I believe that Wordsworth was very unsure about women in general, and clung to Dorothy as a ‘safety net’.

The instability that Wordsworth felt about women is often reflected within his poetry; for example, the character of Goody Blake in Goody Blake and Harry Gill. The solitary figure of Goody Blake is represented as an instable and lonely woman who “dwelt alone”. The fact that she is able to curse Harry Gill after he “seized her” immediately gives her the element of the supernatural; the reader doesn’t know if they can trust her or not. In this poem we see Goody Blake’s contentment coming from condemning a man to be cold for the rest of his life; this could be a reflection of Wordsworth’s distrust in women. However, despite the fact that she has supernatural abilities and the reader is uncertain of her character, there is definitely an element of vulnerability to her as well. “Her poor old bones to ache” makes the reader sympathise with her character and when her vulnerability is acted upon by Harry Gill the reader feels that there has been some justice. This element of vulnerability is also played upon in The Mad Mother. Instead of the protagonist of this poem finding solitude in cursing men, she finds it when her child feeds from her. “Thy lips I feel them, baby! They / Draw from my heart the pain away” shows the vulnerability of the mother being swept aside and ignored when her maternal instinct takes over. This is an example of the symbiotic relationship that Wordsworth has craved since the loss of his own mother. The child needs the mother’s milk to survive, and the mother is freed of her own problems when the child feeds; one without the other wouldn’t cope alone, there is an unconditional love formed that cancels out the vulnerability of each female character.

The Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Woman also presents the image of a symbiotic relationship, although in this case the relationship has been ended and the mother/child connection has almost been broken. “I for once could have thee close to me, / With happy heart I then would die, / And my last thoughts would happy be” shows how the mother feels that she can only die with her child, because neither can live without the other. The Indian Woman feels duty bound to protect her child, but she can’t regain him and this bond being broken has taken any sense of rationality from her. However, we also see that the baby himself wants to protect his mother, “He might pull the sledge for me” shows the mother thinking irrationally about the child being strong and protective of her; I believe that this is simply a reflection of her own feelings that have been warped when her son was taken from her – her maternal instinct has invaded her mind and her senses and she is incapable of fulfilling her job as a mother. The reliance on a child is, in my opinion, a reflection of Wordsworth’s relationship with nature. Without nature he has no inspiration and nothing in his life to take a role of the educator, and in this case I think that although femininity is described as a vulnerable concept, it is also seen to have a value of strength, for without the woman there is nothing for the child to live for.

The reiteration of strength and vulnerability is also mirrored in the repeated mention of fire throughout the Ballads. Connotations of fire are of destruction and hell, yet fire also has strength to devastate and overtake things – thus giving the reader the impression that women are simultaneously destructive and powerful. “The sun has burnt her coal black hair”, a quote taken from The Mad Mother, provides the reader with the image of a bald and broken woman. However, the semantic field of fire, with the words “coal” and “burnt” also gives the reader the impression of something ruined but not gone. For example, when you burn coal, ashes remain; and in relation to the poem this could mean that although the outer image of the mad woman is tarnished, there is still some hidden strength within her. This strength is later displayed when her child is mentioned both “cooling her blood” and “cooling her brain”. The child acts as the ‘water’ to extinguish the ‘fire’ that we see in her outer appearance. The reader is here represented with the notion that femininity isn’t a one sided thing, and ‘exposure to the elements’ can alter the image of a woman, thus linking women with nature.

Wordsworth took a lot of inspiration from his surroundings at his home in the Lake District, and often looked to nature as a form of refuge and solace. To have connections between women and nature immediately gives the reader the impression that there is a purity and cleanliness to be found in women. When we think of the basic necessities in life we would automatically consider shelter, warmth, food and water, and in The Mad Mother nature provides the protagonist with a comfortable place to live, “I’ll build an Indian Bower, I know the leaves that make the softest bed”. Wordsworth here gives the image of comfort and safety within nature, and the fact that the mother knows the “leaves that make the softest bed” shows that she has an understanding of nature, something I believe Wordsworth strives for. If we were to accept this as true then giving the woman the ability to understand nature puts her above Wordsworth in intelligence; femininity is shown in a positive light when the woman has been given the gift to understand exactly what Wordsworth strives for. The admiration that Wordsworth feels for his sister Dorothy is linked to this in the fact that he sees Dorothy as more able than him, he puts both his sister and nature on a pedestal. We can see this in the poem Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. “And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures” moulds the image of Wordsworth being out of his depth with nature; its vastness takes over him and there is almost a base, sexual attraction portrayed where nature is something so “unintelligible” that he partly deifies it. The attraction that Wordsworth should feel towards a woman has been shifted onto nature, and I think that this shows Wordsworth holds the two, nature and women, in a high position in his mind, once again outlining the fact that he finds women almost impossible to understand.

The argument that Wordsworth wrote about women in the Lyrical Ballads almost autobiographically, and as an escapist technique to try and reimburse the maternal love that he was denied, is one that can be fought from both sides. Femininity in the ballads is shown as both a positive and negative concept. It is often clear to see that Wordsworth admires the characters that he wrote about, the mad mother and Goody Blake in particular. On the other hand, I believe that because Wordsworth never received the motherly love he should have done as a child, he almost feared the difference between himself and women. The fact that he didn’t understand them so much linked into images of fire and destruction, and yet the hidden depths explored outlined his acceptance as well. His sister played a huge part both in the construction of The Lyrical Ballads and in his life; she acted as a rock to Wordsworth, she never let him down and he could trust her with anything. I think that this relationship between Dorothy and her brother gave Wordsworth the basis of his acceptance of women, but also allowed him to believe that women were something to be raised on a pedestal, and therefore he placed them of equal importance in his mind. Overall, I think that Wordsworth envied the characters that he wrote about; their awareness of nature, their relationships with their children and also their ability to stand on their own two feet, thus, women in The Lyrical Ballads are characters of depth and strength.