The Life of the Characters in pankhurst's Works

Pankhurst was born in Manchester, and the date of birth was 1858,1July 5. However, she later denied the date of birth, insisting that she was born in July of 14. Because July 14 was the day when the French Revolution captured the Bastille. Pankhurst wanted to make her birthday more "revolutionary" to show that she was born a "revolutionary". She said at 1908: "I always feel that the fact that I was born that day has some influence on my life!"

In fact, her "revolutionary" has nothing to do with the day she was born, but with the family environment in which she grew up. In her family, her parents have been keen on politics for generations. Her mother is from the Isle of Man, an island between England and Ireland, which literally means "the island of man". Legend has it that the earliest developers on the island were all men, hence the name. Although this island belongs to Britain, it has its own country name and national flag. Except for military and foreign affairs, it is almost completely independent and has its own political system. What has a great impact on pankhurst is that the Isle of Man gave women the right to vote in national elections as early as 188 1! There are two kinds of monsters on the island, one is a tailless cat and the other is a four-cornered sheep. According to liberals around 19 10, there is also a "freak" on this island, and that is pankhurst.

Pankhurst himself was not born in the Isle of Man, but in the suburb of Manchester. Her father is a small businessman in Manchester, but he is also very keen on politics. He also runs a small theater and plays this role himself. It is said that pankhurst's later "acting talent" came from her father. However, it was her mother who had the greatest influence on her. The first book her mother gave her 10 children was Uncle Tom's Cabin, which had a great influence on the American abolitionist movement because she was closely related to American abolitionists. When pankhurst was a child, he also participated in fund-raising activities for the liberation of American slaves.

When pankhurst was able to teach herself, her favorite book was Pilgrim's Progress by a persecuted Protestant priest, which was an inspirational work with sales volume second only to the Bible in the west. Another book she likes is Carlyle's History of the French Revolution. Her mother often reads a magazine called "Women's Participation in Political Power", and so does pankhurst, and she gradually likes the editor of the magazine "Lydia Baker". /kloc-when she was 0/4 years old, she heard that her mother was going to attend a rally on women's voting rights, and Baker was going to give a speech at the meeting, so she insisted on going together. Later, she recalled that after listening to the speech, "when I left the meeting, I became a conscious and determined feminist!" "

Since then, pankhurst has been very enthusiastic about politics, mainly devoted to the women's suffrage movement. But at that time her name was not pankhurst, but Emily Gordon (Gordon was her father's surname). Until 1878, she met a man named "Richard pankhurst", a man 22 years older than her. This is a lawyer, but she has long advocated women's participation in politics. The two are like-minded, and although they are very different in age, they soon came together. Although they gave birth to five children in 10, Richard thinks she should not be just a housewife. To this end, they hired a nanny to take care of the children, and pankhurst herself went to an activity called "Women's Voting Rights Association". Of their five children, two boys died sooner or later, and only three daughters were full of personality and fame, which brought glory or "shame" to pankhurst. Richard died in Manchester on 1898. Pankhurst, who lost her husband, had to temporarily stop taking part in women's voluntary participation in politics and find a job to support her family. She got a job registering births and deaths in Chelton, Manchester. But ambitious people can find things related to their ambitions wherever they go. When pankhurst was a "registrar of life and death", she observed the misfortune of lower-class women more truly. For example, those young mothers have to bear the shame of "illegitimate children" alone, while those men concerned seem to have nothing. Supposedly, this phenomenon belongs to the category of social morality, and people's ideas should be changed. But for pankhurst, who has always been obsessed with women's participation in politics, this has strengthened her belief that only when women get the right to vote can the status quo be changed.

Fortunately, after her husband's death, the child was nearly an adult, which lightened her burden. The eldest daughter "Crystal Clock" soon became a good helper in her political activities. By 1903, pankhurst thought that women's participation in politics had not made much progress in parliament for many years-related bills were expected to be passed in parliament in 1870, 1886 and 1897, but they all failed in the end. She felt that some drastic measures should be taken to achieve her goal. Therefore, she and several allies initiated the establishment of the "Women's Social and Political Alliance", which is an organization only for women and dedicated to fighting for women's voting rights through direct action. In her later memories, she summed up the purpose of this organization: "Action, not words, is our eternal motto!" "

The action really started! However, at first, they were limited to giving public lectures and collecting the signatures of petitions. What is more striking is that they set up the "Women's Parliament". When parliament is in session, they also have a meeting to sing songs against parliament. On May 1905, 12, when a bill on women's participation in politics was blocked in the parliament, they began to gather outside the parliament building and protest loudly. The police immediately dispersed them, but they gathered again and insisted on passing the bill. Although the bill was not passed in the end, the conflict made pankhurst realize that, after all, we have been noticed and become a "political force".

Since then, "noisy" protests have become a strategy of pankhurst. Her three daughters were arrested for this, and she herself was arrested for the first time in February, 1908, for trying to break into parliament and submit a protest decision to Prime Minister Asquith. She was sentenced to six weeks in prison for "obstructing official duties". Although she kept complaining about the harsh environment in prison, including "parasites, poor food and terrible silence", she realized that being imprisoned could be a good "tool" to publicize the urgency of women's participation in politics! So, on 1909, she deliberately punched a policeman in the face to ensure that she could be arrested. She has been arrested many times, up to 12 times a year. But once she was arrested, by going up one flight of stairs became famous. She also used the court that tried her as a "propaganda stage". When she was tried in 1908, she made a quip to the court: "We are not here because we are lawbreakers; We are only here because we are trying to be legislators! "

Later, pankhurst's strategy was close to "madness": no matter which political party, as long as women's participation in politics was not given priority, people in the "Women's Social and Political Alliance" opposed it. Especially during the campaign, they ran to the campaign site to "make trouble". This strategy first separated the Liberal Party from them-there were many liberals who supported women's participation in politics at that time, but they were attacked because women's participation in politics was not the first topic in the election. However, the most unfortunate thing about this break is the Liberal Party candidate. It is said that Churchill once lost the election because "those women burst into laughter from time to time" during his speech, which greatly reduced the effect of Churchill's eloquent speech! Therefore, after Churchill became the "Minister of the Interior", the suppression of these women who fought for political participation was particularly fierce. Sometimes, women can be very painful in noisy places. Once, they went to a noisy place in pankhurst and were attacked by some supporters of the Liberal Party with clods, rotten eggs and stones. Pankhurst's ankle was badly bruised.

Finally, the conflict is escalating. Women smashed the windows of the Prime Minister's Office with stones, painted slogans on the walls of the Parliament Building, and destroyed famous paintings in art galleries in Manchester and other places. 19 12, when Prime Minister Asquith visited the Royal Theatre in Dublin, some "fighting women" tried to explode with explosives! At the same time, other "fighting women" threw axes at Prime Minister Asquith's car! They also set fire to some parks, railway stations and other places, or threw sulfuric acid at places where parliamentarians played golf ...1965438+On June 4, 2003, a "fighting woman" named Emily Davidson rushed to the horse race of King George V during the king's tour of Derby Marseille, and she lay down automatically and was trampled to death by royal horses.

The terrorist act of "beating a woman" has aroused great criticism. However, the issue of women's participation in politics has indeed aroused widespread concern in society, and some even expressed sympathy for these "fighting women". Some women went on hunger strike after being put in prison. The prison authorities forced them to eat because they had to pry their mouths open with metal tools. Pankhurst said that the "screams of prisoners in the next cell" made her shudder for years. When she was forced to eat by herself, she held a kettle in her hand and threatened to commit suicide if she was forced to eat, so that she escaped the robbery. Later, this behavior of the prison aroused strong social dissatisfaction, and many medical experts also protested. Parliament had to enact the "cat and mouse law", which stipulated that when women went on hunger strike, they would be released and put into prison.

After the start of World War I, pankhurst temporarily stopped fighting out of patriotic motives and even took the initiative to cooperate with the government. But in 19 18, the British Parliament finally passed a bill to give women over 30 the right to vote! Of course, this is another story. However, after the 19 10 general election and during the ruling period of the Liberal Party, the violence of "women in battle" did bring great crisis to the ruling Liberal Party.