It’s a Cold, Hard World Out There

When examining Hard Times for evidence of beauty, it is conspicuously absent from basically all aspects of the book, especially in the first half of the novel,. Darkness, ugliness, and cold, hard facts are the only things clearly evident. The description of Coketownon depicts this perfectly:

“It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like on another.” (p.26)

This quote summarizes the feel of the book very well. Looking at the language here, Dickens uses words like “melancholy,” “unnatural,” “smoke and ashes,” “machinery,” “ill-smelling dye,” and “monotonously.” This place he describes then is an industrial town, composed of machinery and the nasty byproducts of the industrial work. It is a place where the work, the town itself, and the people who live there are all repetitive and dull. It is an “unnatural” place, to use Dickens own word. It is challenging, nigh impossible, to dig out any sort of beauty from this picture he paints for us. Yet, we said in our manifesto that there is always some form of beauty present in literature even if it is not found on the surface. The question arises, then, of where the beauty is present in this novel. When it comes to beauty, we have to remember that it doesn’t come in only a pure visual aesthetic form. There are many types of beauty: beauty in nature, yes, but also beauty of imagination and fancy, beauty of childhood and innocence, and beauty of fun, and more. All of these forms of beauty are sorely lacking from the factual and industrial Coketown, (with the one exception of the circus which is meant to provide juxtaposition for this), and this lack turns the inhabitants’ lives into something exactly like how the town is described: cold, hard, dark, and monotonous. The characters hardly even live. They simply endure and carry on, and not much more. They are not happy and do not enjoy the ride that is life.

The character Stephen Blackpool embodies these characteristics. As he describes it in the novel, all lives consist of both roses and thorns, but his life seemed to both lack the roses and have someone else’s thorns. He is always, in his words, in a muddle. His life is hard. He lives in a tiny apartment with a “tainted atmosphere” (p.67), he has a miserable wife who treats him poorly and no one can or will help him be rid of her, and all he does day in and day out is work in the factory without adequate compensation or recognition. And yet, he also barely asks for a thing, not expecting much in return, and simply endures his unhappy condition. All the poor man gets in return for his dedication is undeserved accusations, slander upon his honorable name, and eventually death. There is no beauty in Blackpool’s life and he suffers immensely for it.

All these points seem to further prove there is no beauty in this novel. But I think that is exactly the atmosphere Dickens wanted to create in order to prove a point about beauty itself. His intention with Hard Times seems a direct statement that people need beauty, in all it’s wonderful and various forms, in their lives to make it a full life that they can enjoy. Without beauty, life lacks the essential parts that make it worth living. As Louisa says in replying to Bounderby’s proposal, “What does it matter?” (p.97). She is apathetic even to a decision as seemingly important as marrying someone, because it doesn’t seem to matter. Life as a whole doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing seems to matter without those beautiful components of nature, innocence, fun, and imagination that are missing. Tom Gradgrind realizes this as he sees how miserable Louisa is as a result of his cold, factual, and intentionally non-beautiful upbringing of his children, which is what Dickens wants his public to realize too when reading this novel.

I see this novel as Dickens’ protest to the industrialization of the world that seems to be both taking people further and further away from all those forms of beauty that are essential to life, and replacing that beauty of the world with machines and facts. Hard Times gradually incorporates more beauty as it nears the end, because Tom realizes the truth of these ideas and, hopefully, the readership does also. Although much of this novel is obviously not beautiful, it still contains an important message about it: beauty in Hard Times comes in the form of shining a spotlight on the importance of beauty in the world.

The Fall House of Usher

For this weeks posting I wanted to take a better look at Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. We learned in class that characteristics of gothic literature are gloomy, mysterious, dark, and many other characteristics associated with the darker side. It was with these characteristics in mind that I questioned in a story as dark as the Fall of the House of Usher does beauty still exist? Although Poe’s story is full of dark concepts such as illness and death, a sense of beauty still shines through his writing. For instance, “He stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, in one of the numerous vaults in the main walls of the building”(Poe). Initially reading this is seems utterly disturbing that he would keep the corpse of his sister in his house. However, I think when readers look at it on a deeper level, they can see the love Usher had for his sister and their incredible bond. No matter what type of love, be it family, significant others or friends, love can always be seen as beautiful even at its most tragic hour. The element of mystery in the story supplies beauty as well, it sparks people imagination and curiosity of the unknown. Poe includes lots of mystery in the story especially surrounding the character of Madeline. When reading the story Madeline and many of the other character get portrayed almost as if there not living, as if there just floating along in a daze. Instead of being seen as evil ghosts, I saw each character with immaculate beauty, as if they were floating along surrounded with a white light. Beauty shines through the nature portrayed in the story as well. “While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened, there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind, the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight” (Poe). Beauty can be seen in the power Poe places on the nature. He makes the nature’s power surpass the power of the man. At the same time he gives nature such an incredible power he paints a picture of an illuminated sky for the reader. 

 I feel that beauty can be seen in anything, sometimes its just harder to see. Poe is famously known for his dark and dreary reading but, even still beauty can shine through the pages of his writing just in a different manner. Beauty is not always flowers and butterflies but can sometimes be portrayed in the darkest most dreary situations. This leaves me with the question, is there any piece of literature that contains no beauty at all?

 

Poe, Edgar. “The Fall House of Usher”. 1839. Rpt. in English 372: 19th-Century Literature of the British Empire and the Americas. Comp. Donna Campbell. Pullman, WA: Cougar Copies, 2012. 4-6. Print.

The Sublime Passion of Victor Frankenstein

In considering Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the reader must confront and evaluate what their own idea of beauty is and whether their idea of “beauty” is universal, or if any idea of what creates beauty can be universal. When Victor Frankenstein has first created the monster, the first (and, since the monster has no personality or character traits yet, only) thing he notices is how hideous it is. Frankenstein exclaims, “Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips” (Shelley 39). No, Frankenstein’s creation is not remotely beautiful — in fact, his visage is described to be positively grotesque, which is what leads to his ultimate exclusion from society. Though Frankenstein and the rest of society’s evaluation of the monster is nothing more than simple physiognomy (judging someone’s character or personality from their outward appearance), their rejection is enough to send the monster into abject despair, and, desperate to be loved and accepted, he lashes out against Frankenstein by murdering those who Frankenstein holds most dear.

Because of this, Frankenstein’s sole purpose for being becomes either appeasing or defeating the monster, which brings me to my point: though neither the monster or this story are beautiful in any sort of traditional sense, the aesthetic idea of the sublime is very much at work in Shelley’s story. One of the components of Edmund Blake’s evaluation of the sublime is the notion of a “painful idea [creating] a sublime passion” — and is this not exactly what happens when Frankenstein becomes consumed solely with getting rid of the monster, one way or another? Whether it’s building a female monster for companionship, or tailing the monster into the Arctic in order to kill him, Frankenstein becomes obsessed with and possessed by the idea of finishing off the monster once and for all. And though, between the murders, Frankenstein’s near-constant illness (brought on by guilt and anxiety), and the general bleak overtone provided by our narrator’s increasing depression, we do not see much traditional or conventional beauty within this novel (the sole exception being the supremely-described natural settings, which seem to be the only thing in which Frankenstein takes solace), we see Frankenstein’s “sublime passion” overtake his entire life — and, indeed, in the end, this passion is what kills him, in a roundabout sort of way. And, in a way, that seems to be almost the only way that a story which relies so heavily on the idea of the sublime can end.

Can I Get A Hero?!

 “Q: How do you find out the true nature and character of a hero? A: Ask his or her children” (Alexie, 138). A hero, in my opinion, is someone who rises above expectation and surpasses the social norm of what is happening. A child represents the innocent part of society. They are sponges absorbing actions around them. Kids often say the most off-the-wall things — first, simply because they feel like it, and second, the filter that society wants us to have isn’t there yet. Instead of interpreting actions in the context of what was happening they look at how the ‘you’ and how ‘you’ behaved. It would be so easy to label someone a hero after something marvelous happens. But not all things are marvelous. Superman doesn’t often land a plane safely after a meteor strike, from a planet outside our galaxy took off one of its wings, with only just one hand sometime around lunch. A hero is shown through actions, real actions. Superman does save people but that is his only motivation. He does it because he has the ability to. He felt an obligation to save the plane full of people because they could not save themselves. A few more heroes that represent society’s emphasis on self-sacrifice, helping others without gain and overcome adversity: Batman wears a disguise and moves with stealth and purpose only in the cover of darkness. Jackie Robinson was brave enough to be silent in the face of atrocity and let his ability/actions speak for themselves. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger only thought of his passengers when landing the plane he was flying in the Hudson (huffingtonpost). He responded to the media that he only was able to do as he did because of his years of experience and training. A hero from the reading who stood out in contrast to the heroes we hold in such high regard was Manfred. Act II, Scene II, showed an arrogant and cocky hero who once cared about a girl but is not with her now. He has the power to help those who need help or cannot otherwise help themselves, but he has no moral responsibility to do so. With all the expectation placed upon heroes, this portrayal has another take. It makes me question what would I do if I had powers? Would I go out of my way to save people? Would I interrupt my life or would I view myself above others?

Sources

Alexie, Sherman. “Estelle Walks Above.” Ten Little Indians: Stories. New York: Grove, 2003. N. pag. Print.

 Baram, Marcus. “CHESLEY B. SULLY SULLENBERGER, US AIRWAYS PILOT, HERO OF PLANE CRASH.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Jan. 2009. Web. 04 Sept. 2013.