Thomas Carlyle

Carlyle was very passionate about his country and the change that needed to occur. He fought for the working class and he spoke to the upper class to try to get these changes. I liked the way that Carlyle opened his writings in "Midas". He used a lot of contrast to try to get his point across. He would write something positive about England, but he would follow with a statement that would devalue the positive that he just stated. For example, Carlyle wrote, "England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition."(477). I found this technique to be very effective. He is telling of how wonderful England is and how much it has to offer, yet it is slowly dying of exhaustion and lack of nourishment.

Carlyle found the treatment of the working class to be repulsive. At one point in "Midas"Carlyle writes, "They sit there , pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they many not perish starved."(478). At this point in the passage Carlyle is referring to the people in the workhouses. These workhouses were set up as places to help the poor, but the conditions were unbearable. A footnote explains that the conditions were made worse than any paying job because they did not want loafers. This treatment is absurd and Carlyle called for a change. He looked to the rich to make this change. He expected them to take responsibility for their country and discontinue their ignorance about the treatment of the lower classes. He continues his discussion of the workers in the workhouses by writing, "In the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress and weariness;"(478). These men in these workshops were clearly not happy with their lives. They were ashamed of the situation they were in, but there was nothing they could do about it. Circumstance had put them there and they needed help, but the upper class people of the country were abandoning them.

One part of this reading that really struck me was when Carlyle discusses the parents that are being tried for the murders of their children. Of course, it is shocking that any parents could kill their child, the being that they created, but it is hard not to feel bad for them. I can not imagine how hard it would be to watch your child suffer...especially when you know there is nothing you can do to help them. These parents saw it the lesser of the two evils to put their children out of their misery. They did not want to see these children grow up in such horrible circumstances. They realized that even if the children escaped these circumstances, they would never be able to forget the horrid nature of their upbringing. This was so sad to me. I felt bad for the kids because they surely did not bring themselves into that life, but I also felt bad for the parents because they were completely helpless and forced to just watch their children be miserable.

Carlyle claims that no one is really benefiting from the life in England. He states, " We have sumptuous garnitures for our life, but have forgotten to live in the middle of them. It is an enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The class of men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it, let them give us their name!"(479). I agree with what Carlyle is saying here. When we are surrounded by such horrible sights and people who can barely get by, it is impossible to enjoy any kind of wealth. No one in society is benefiting from having the majority of the members of that society treated so poorly and stuck in such rotten conditions.

At the end of the passage Carlyle writes, "We have more riches than and Nation ever had before; we have less good of them than any Nation ever had before. Our successful industry it hitherto unsuccessful; a strange success, if we stop here! In the midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish;"(480). I think what Carlyle is trying to say is that despite all the wealth that England has, it will never be successful without it's people. If the people are suffering and can not live than all the wealth the nation has acquired is irrelevant. I agree with Carlyle in this sense. A country is nothing without it's citizens. This is why Carlyle is pushing so hard for the upper class to make some type of change.