The Old Arm-Chair

This poem, The Old Armchair (1838), made hers a household name for a generation, both in England and in America. Cook was a proponent of political freedom for women, and believed in the ideology of self-improvement through education, something she called 'levelling up. ' This made her hugely popular with the working class public. The poem is a depiction of the suffering that results from death and departure. The poetess laments her mother's death but through remembering an arm chair that her mother used to sit in. The chair is a holy item for the girl because it has many memories that gathers her and her mother. It is also holy because it reminds the girl with her mother so she cannot simply get rid of. The poetess begins the poem by telling the readers that she loves a thing and that is an old arm chair. she says that she values it as treasures and something holy for her. She tells the readers that she enclosed the chair with her tears and embalmed it with her sadness. She explains to the reader why this chair is so important to her.