Editing Felicia Hemans (section)

==Female suicide in Hemans' works==
{{See also|Suicide in literature}}
Several of Hemans's characters take their own lives rather than suffer the social, political and personal consequences of their compromised situations. At Hemans's time, [[women's writing (literary category)|women writers]] were often torn between a choice of home or the pursuit of a literary career.<ref name=jstor>{{cite journal|jstor=463119|title=Hemans and Home: Victorianism, Feminine "Internal Enemies," and the Domestication of National Identity|last1=Lootens|first1=Tricia|journal=PMLA|year=1994|volume=109|issue=2|pages=238–253|doi=10.2307/463119|s2cid=163488116 }}</ref> Hemans herself was able to balance both roles without much public ridicule, but left hints of discontent through the themes of feminine death in her writing.<ref name=erudit>{{cite journal|url=https://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2003/v/n29-30/007715ar.html|title=The Poetics of Expiration: Felicia Hemans|first=Jeffrey C.|last=Robinson|date=3 September 2017|journal=Romanticism on the Net|issue=29–30|doi=10.7202/007715ar}}</ref> The suicides of women in Hemans's poetry dwell on the same social issue that was confronted both culturally and personally during her life: the choice of caged domestication or freedom of thought and expression.<ref name=jstor />

"The Bride of the Greek Isle", "The Sicilian Captive", "The Last Song of Sappho" and "Indian Woman's Death Song" are some of the most notable of Hemans' works involving women's suicides. Each poem portrays a heroine who is untimely torn from her home by a masculine force – such as pirates, Vikings, and unrequited lovers – and forced to make the decision to accept her new confines or command control over the situation. None of the heroines are complacent with the tragedies that befall them, and the women ultimately take their own lives in either a final grasp for power and expression or a means to escape victimisation.<ref name=erudit/>