Thomas Carlyle-Past and Present p477-486

Carlyle’s style and emotional input in his writing really caught my attention. He greatly portrayed his distress and disappointment in the change in society that was taking place (a change for the worse that is). He showed both outrage and perhaps shame for the government and its lack of laws that protected the working-class.

“A Poor-law, any and every Poor-law, it may be observed, is but a temporary measure; an anodyne not a remedy: Rich and Poor, when once the naked facts of their condition have come into collision, cannot long subsist together on a mere Poor-law. True enough:--and yet, human beings cannot be left to die!” (Midas, p478)

The government was failing the working-class. Instead, the majority were fixed on wealth and the material things that came along with it. Carlyle told of a husband and wife who made the decision to murder their children in order to feed their starved bodies. And I think this few lines captures the atmosphere of the whole society.

“A human Mother and Father had said to themselves, What shall we do to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in or dark cellar; and help is far.—Yes, in the Ugolino Hunger-tower stern things happen; best-loved little Gaddo fallen dead on his Father’s knees!—The Stockport Mother and Father think and hint: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world: if he were out of misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps kept alive? It is though, and hinted; at last it is done. And now Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will?—What committee of ways and means!” (Midas, p479)

Within this horrible story, it seems as if Carlyle felt more sympathy and compassion than anger for this couple. A couple that made a choice to take the life of their own child because they could not feed themselves or the rest of their family. Can we blame them for their acts? What other choice did they have but to allow them all to die of starvation in their home? Who would have the strength to find them guilty for the murder of their child? I don’t think that I would be able to. So who is to blame? Is it the government for not providing them with the proper laws of protection, or is it the common people who pass them by on the street without offering a helping hand?
In The Irish Widow Carlyle clearly shows how although the members of the society have created an invisible line between the rich and poor, they are still ultimately the same people.

“Behold I am sinking, bare of help: ye must help me? I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us; ye must help me!” They answer, “No, impossible; though are no sister of ours.” But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus-fever kill them: they actually were her brothers, though denying it! Had human creature ever to go lower for a proof…Seventeen of you lying dead will not deny such proof that she was flesh of your flesh; and perhaps some of the living may lay it to heart.” (The Irish Widow, p481)

Even though the woman desperately cried out for help from those around her, they continued to refuse her, for they felt that she was beneath them, and perhaps they thought she was even of another being. The conditions of that time so divided the society into two nations, yet they could not escape the same illness that they denied. Carlyle was clearly disturbed by the inhumane acts of the people who once called each other neighbor or friend.