Theses and Dissertations
Date of Award
5-1-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Beatrice Newman
Second Advisor
Marisa Palacios Knox
Third Advisor
Mark Noe
Abstract
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Cry of the Children” employs trauma-driven rhetoric to expose Victorian child labor exploitation.
Combining literary analysis with rhetorical theory, this research contextualizes the poem within 19th-century industrial exploitation, showing how Browning transforms documentary evidence like the 1842 Children’s Employment Commission Report into emotional testimony. Visceral imagery, ironic juxtaposition, and embodied suffering weaponize pathos to reveal systemic abuse and moral urgency. Applying Lloyd Bitzer’s and Richard Vatz’s theories, we can posit that Browning both responds to and defines the crisis, merging poetic protest with social reform as civic intervention.
By engaging Bitzer and Vatz, this paper argues the poem both exposes existing horrors and reframes them as moral calls to action. This study underscores rhetorical art’s power to convert historical injustice into ethical reflection, guiding the central inquiry: how Browning’s poem employs the rhetorical situation to expose a society privileging economic pragmatism over moral cost.
Recommended Citation
Solis, E. V. (2026). From Witness to Weapon: How Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Cry of the Children” Embodies and Transforms the Rhetorical Situation [Master's thesis, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley]. ScholarWorks @ UTRGV. https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/etd/1907
Comments
Copyright 2026 Elyssa Vianey Solis. All Rights Reserved. https://proquest.com/docview/3371131636