Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Final Paper
5/6/16
Great Expectations:
In the late 18th to the middle of the 19th centuries, England experienced the Industrial
Revolution. This event changed the face of the world forever, socially, politically and
economically. It ushered in the age of factories, escorted the age of feudalism and its farmers and
craftsmen to memory and created the cash nexus and the slums and gave men a new system to
corrupt. Gone were Robert Southeys beloved traditional and agricultural feudalism where the
farmer and craftsmen lived simply with understanding of where their place was, perhaps in
poverty but a part of a system and able to maintain homes, even if meager. In its place,
Mammons temples (the dark Satanic Mills) were constructed and gone were Southeys
romantic vision of cottages and shops with ornamented chimneys which were raised by the
magic of some indigenous Amphions music. These temples were factories and workhouses of
Southeys views, mocking his wisdom in his review of the romantics work stating that we
despise these mock philosophers. Macaulays world was one of laissez-faire capitalism where
History is full of the signs of this natural progress of history and that We see the wealth of
nations increasing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer and nearer to perfection and that
London has been almost constantly becoming richer and richer. But is this true? To read
Friedrich Engels The Great Towns and to look at the writings of Thomas Carlyle, despite the
statistics used by Macaulay, one would wonder what the truth is, what really crawls under the
ornate rugs of English society; the unwanted things swept aside out of view, out of the mind of
In 1861, revered author Charles Dickens penned his novel Great Expectations. This work
spins the tale of a young boy born into poverty only to, through a series of events (fortunate or
unfortunate is debatable) that led him to a path to gentleman-hood, love, betrayal, crime,
heartbreak and redemption. But is that what this tale is all about? It can be argued that these
stories were written partially to respond to these mens works on the condition of England and
also, perhaps, his addition to the ruminations of Southey, Engels, Macaulay and Carlyle. This
paper will explore the views of Dickens and how they provide a literary illustration of the ideas
presented by Thomas Carlyle, specifically his desire to see people living in his version of
It would be good to take a moment to outline the core characteristics and works of the
men that wrote on the conditions of England in this time period. First there was Robert Southey
who penned Colloquies, a lamentation and reminiscence of Englands feudal days. He was a pro-
agricultural feudalist who valued the use of local materials to build the picturesque houses he
loved so much to gaze upon. He saw local aesthetics as a way to determine if the social
landscape existed in harmony within its role in the hierarchy. He saw the effects of
industrialization ugly and without personality. The second on the list is Thomas Macaulay, a man
who wrote a scathing review of Southeys work finding the poetic view without merit. Macaulay
was a laissez-faire capitalist who used statistics to prove his arguments. He favored free trade,
the factory over the craftsman and put his hopes in the people, which for him were the middle
class; the petit bourgeoisie. Next on the list is Thomas Carlyle. He produced a work knows as
Past and Present which is part of an overarching work called Democracy, an interesting title as
that there was no return to the days of feudalism and that capitalism could work under certain
conditions, most notably, when the Master cared for the Worker or chivalric capitalism, a
term coined by a respected Catawba professor though rumored to be an alien. Carlyle was
against the cash nexus (a system that put profit over people) and the alienation of the people. He
wished for the captains of industry to be those which replaced the aristocracy in order to lead
the people, men that were serving wisely in their tier of the hierarchy who would see to the
health and morale of the tiers below them. He desired that everyone know their role within this
social hierarchy and that true liberty was being told what your role is so you wouldnt have to
worry about finding your place but be placed in it, taught and become a happy worker for a
happy master.
Friedrich Engels created The Great Towns. He was much like Carlyle in his stance against the
cash nexus, the alienation of people and favored an organized society more linear than Carlyles
horizontal), but those similarities ended there as while Carlyle wasnt against capitalism, Engels
was a Marxist. This last point he clarified by writing on his experiences on the streets where the
people ignored each other, concerned with their duties and not each other. He also wrote of the
chaos, filth and disorganization of the streets in the industrialized towns, using visual
confirmation as his proof instead of romantic dreams or statistics. All these men, except
cured only by a return to the old ways (Southey), a compromise (Carlyle) or another system all
together (Engels) and Dickens work includes elements of all these ideas formed into a literary
The full range of the social classes are represented in Great Expectations, as Carlyle
states, We have Upper, speaking classesDescending, accordingly, into the Dumb Class. We
have Miss Havisham and her family as the aristocracy; Jaggers, Wopsle and Pumplechook as the
petit bourgeoisies; Wemmick and Joe as the proletariats. In a way, this is what Thomas Carlyle
desired in society; that everyone had and knew their place in the hierarchy. However, he (and
Dickens as we will see later) would replace the Havishams with factory owners and would
replace the methods of Jaggers with a softer hand to protect the people like Wemmick.
Macaulays brute capitalism created men like Wemmick to hide their true selves and suffer in
solitude among the slaving working class. For Carlyle, is: The true liberty of a man, you would
say, consisted in his finding out, or being forced to find out, the right path, and to walk thereon.
To learn, or to be taught, what work he actually was able for; and then by permission, persuasion,
and even compulsion, to set about doing of the same. We can see this come to fruition when,
after forsaking his apprenticeship with Joe to become a gentleman, Pip returns home to go back
to his roots and his role in society. But can we go back? Carlyle didnt think so, and . He says,
had we heeded Havens voice to have begun two generations or more ago, cannot be delayed
longer without hearing earths voice. Carlyle understood that the dream to return to the good old
days that Southey wrote of was not possible and that man will actually need to have his debts
and earnings paid a little better by man would require a system where the cash nexus was
replaced with a system of caring masters and cared for workers. Money could no longer be the
God of industry: Our deity no longer being Mammon, -O Heavens, each man will then say to
himself; Why such deadly haste to make money? I shall not go to Hell, even if I do not make
money! There is another Hell I am told!, says Carlyle. Pips plans were changed when he
realized that the woman he intended to settle down with was already married and set forth to live
his life and work for his best friend Herbert. The bonds of men were also valued by Carlyle and
proved to be best for Pip. Upon working for Herbert and settling into a good, cared for life with a
purpose and friends Pip says, I must not leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great
House, or that we made mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a
good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so much to Herbert's ever
cheerful industry and readiness, that I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his
inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude had
never been in him at all, but had been in me. Pip lamented leaving his place at the forge when,
upon reflecting the situation that put him in his gentlemans role, he says to Herbert, even
though I was so wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would far rather
have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would ever have come to this! But as we
know, Pip cannot return to the forge, just as Joe married Biddy, England has married capitalism
thus forbidding the feudal days to return, but as Pip and Herbert experienced, and if England
would heed the cry of Carlyle, the captains of industry could strive To be a nobler Master,
among nobler Workers, will again be the first ambition with some few; to be a rich master only
second. This is chivalric capitalism, this is the hierarchy or roles in an industrial nation that
would close the doors of the temples of Mammon and look to the welfare of the people over the
padding of pockets. It is interesting that Wemmick of the novel is the perfect example of the
current system (then) of brute capitalism. He works for as heartless master and is forced to be
an island while he is in town, stoic, alienated, but leads a opposite and more fulfilling and civil
existence when out of the city and in his home also it is no coincidence that as feudalism has
been toppled, so to was the castle that once housed the Havisham (and not coincidently a
brewery: the death of craft) aristocrats destroyed and though England may never see again
Southeys cottages (which) the poet and the painter equally delight by capitalism but it be can
cleaned up the streets of blood and foam and become a society built on relationships first,
profit second and ever push on to greater expectations for the heart and the purse.
Epilog
Since this will probably, sadly, be the last paper I will write for you, I wanted to take a
minute to personally expand on this topic. Both Dickens books, the conditions of England
works and some of the books in Science Fiction Literature have had a profound effect on my
worldview, even at my age, I can be taught new tricks. For years I thought the American
socioeconomic model was the best way, but I am not so sure anymore as the same issues raised
by Carlyle and Engels still remain today, maybe worse and surely more widespread. We seem to
be moving towards a society like that found in Space Merchants and the only real hope the world
may have is Carlyles Liberty. Time will tellbut Im afraid what it has to say.
Up the Punx!