Speaker notes

Bess Calhoun on Aurora Leigh

- Life of Elizabeth Barret Browning

- Group Work:
1) It'd be a lie to say "yes" and become Romney's wife, and she considers herself an honest person.
2) She is appealing to G-d for what she wants, not what anyone else wants; thanking G-d that she said "no" instead of "yes" to Romney; defends her decision by saying her will was given to her by G-d, so it is G-d's will.
3) She doesn't need things to be happy; her soul's life is not bound up in material things, it depends on her for happiness and fulfillment. Wants to rise above her mortal state through the soul, into heaven.
4) Convinced that Aurora will starve without a man to support her; disappointed in Aurora's rebellious attitude towards her demands, including her wish that she marry Romney.

Woman's work - Book 1, lines 455 on
Response to what Romney says - Book 2, lines 356 on

- Aurora is "caught between two binaries of what a woman should be"

- Romney's speech, Book 2, lines 218-25 - self-contradictory!! An obviously-flawed ideology!! Christ sacrificed himself, and women can't produce a female Christ, though they can be Saints? Saints are people who had to sacrifice themselves just to be sainted - they were martyrs. In that line of logic, there certainly could be a female Christ. Eat your words, Romney Leigh!!

- Aurora uses language to further her cause - Book 2, lines 400-6: she acts and sounds subservient and deferential, but in being so she refuses to do or be what he wants.

- Important to recognize that Aurora does not exactly what she wants - her life as self-supported artist is hard, lonely, and without relief.