Tag Archives: michaela seaton romero

Poverty of Charles Dickens in Bleak House

Leave a reply

Michaela Seaton Romero

Charles Dickens was a victim of poverty. Growing up he first had an idyllic childhood, even going to school. But when his father was sent to debtor’s prison, he and his sister had to go to work at a shoe blacking factory until their father was freed. Even though he had a happy early childhood, the poverty he witnessed, the preying on the young, and the exploitation of the weak played heavy themes among his later novels. One such novel is Bleak House. Bleak House explores what greed can do to someone, and how poverty plays into it.

Jo is a character readers meet in Bleak House. A street urchin, he shows where the old captain’s grave was.  Jo represents a large multitude of different children Dickens could have met on the streets in his time. Esther, the narrator of Bleak House,  talks about Jo. How odd it must be to be Jo, to see people read and write, but for that to be a completely alien thing to him because he has never been to school, to see people go by without even caring. She seems to think lowly of him, wondering if he ever thinks, if he even can think. Esther talks about how people go to church, which must seem so foreign for Jo, the little lowly street urchin. When he is jostled and pushed out of the way, she wonders if he thinks he’s not really worth anything. In her view, Jo was overlooked until he became what he was, worth nothing more than cow or a dog. His whole life is totally foreign and Esther cannot understand it, she has a gawker mindset when talking about Jo.

It is very probable Dickens put into Esther’s commentary about Jo what he himself heard as a child among the poor people. In his society the poor were considered almost a blight upon the others. It makes me wonder if he was made to feel less than human and not worth anything, not even a kindly glance or for someone to take the time to give him a stale piece of bread. Jo was less than human.

Dickens is making an adept political statement about his society. The Chancery courts in Bleak House were examples of the courts in England, who did not actually care about the people or the law, only what would benefit the ones who could afford to exploit the system. As can be seen in Esther’s portrayal of Jo, Dickens also looks down upon the ill education of the poor and the neglect of them.

The fog is also symbolic of the oppression that permeates Victorian society. The Victorian world was governed by greed and money, of which the poor unfortunately were often victims. His descriptions of the streets, the urchins, and the overcrowded living quarters are all indicative of the conditions during Dickens’s time. It was a gloomy time with society rotting according to Dickens, and this shows through in his work. In one scene he details three children who talk with Esther and her guardian. They have a gawker mindset, completely baffled how the little girl in women’s clothes could be supporting the other two. It is sad, considering Dickens probably felt the same way when he had to support his family. It is horrible how the society ignores their own festering blisters of poverty and does nothing to help the poor children.

Dickens saw the dark side of England, the poverty, when he had to work for his family. What he saw and experienced he put into his books, nudging his political views on poverty into the minds of his readers. Bleak House shows this, as does The Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. Dickens made sure he always included people who suffer from others’ greed, and in doing so, established himself as one of the greatest authors of the Victorian Era.

Two Odes Analyzed

Leave a reply

Garrett Fields and Michaela Seaton Romero

“Ode to the West Wind” Analysis

Garrett Fields

The poem written by Percy Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind,” personifies the winds in the west.  It is seen as a powerful force that destroys but also preserves.  It kills the decaying and weak to make a path for the new.  It destroys the old and provides a new environment for the new.

In the first stanza, Shelley says the West Wind is “wild.”  It blows away the leaves that have died and started to rot.  It makes way for the springtime after the rough winter.  The wind takes the seeds off the trees and bushes and buries them in the soil so they can spring up into new life a few months later.  The seeds bloom into new life during the spring.  It destroys the old and starts a new fresh beginning in the spring.  This is why the west wind is described as both a destroyer then a creator, or a preserver.

In the next stanza, Shelley talks about the sky.  He talks about the effect of the winds on the clouds.  The winds break the clouds apart almost like the decaying leaves of a tree.  The clouds become rainclouds and look ominous over the earth.  The clouds are compared to the outspread hair covering the sky from the horizon to its zenith.  The craziness of the sky is compared to Maenad, worshipper of the Greek god of wine.  Shelley uses this comparison because Maenad worships the god in a sort of wild and crazy way, lifting her hair like tangled clouds.  These indicate an approaching storm.

The West Wind then becomes a funeral song.  It is being sung because the year is dying.  The dark night sky becomes a grave or a tomb where the clouds mold the tomb.  They will soon pour down rain.

In the third stanza, the West Wind blows across the Mediterranean Sea.  He describes it as a vast sleepy snake, which dreams of old civilizations rich in flowers and vegetation.  In the sea’s sleep, it sees “old palaces and towers,” which quiver when the wind blows.  The West Wind also affects the Atlantic Ocean.  The plants under the surface tremble at the sounds of the strong breezes.  They fear the power of the West Wind.

In stanza four, the West Wind becomes a more personal force.  Shelley said if he were one of the leaves, or the clouds or waves, he would be able to feel the power of the West Wind.  He said during his childhood he had the power and speed of the West Wind.  Shelley said he no longer has the strength and speed like he did in his childhood.  The burdens of life have dragged them down.  He is facing problems in his life, which have drained his strength.  He now looks to the West Wind for help.

In the last stanza, Shelley offers himself to the West Wind in the same way as the leaves, clouds, and waves do.  He wants the wind to be a musician, and he should be used as a lyre for this purpose.  The music could be gloomy but a sweet sound.  Then he compares himself to a burning fire with sparks and ashes.  He requests the West Wind blows his sparks and ashes among mankind.

Shelley ends his poem with the hope the West Wind will take his words across the world.  Winter is a symbol of death and decay, but spring brings new life and hope.  He portrays this poem as saying if there is despair and pain now, then hope and optimism are just around the corner.  If winter is here, spring isn’t far behind.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” Analysis

Michaela Seaton

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a great example of Romantic poems.  It is a highly emotional poem addressing things not present.  Written by John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” utilizes moving language, sensations, and images to get its point across.  The main theme is constancy or eternity, the innocence that comes with not changing.

In the first line of the first stanza, he says “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness” which literally means pure bride of quietness.  It isn’t actually talking about the marital vows of an urn, it is talking about how the urn is silent; she’s not an “adulterer” to quietness, literally meaning the urn was adopted by silence and slow time.  She keeps all her secrets, while still showing the story upon her.  The second line is similar in its message: “Thou foster child of silence and slow time.” Once again, Keats uses imagery to show how he sees the urn, as a perfect representation of stagnant time.

The next two lines, “Sylvan historian, who canst thus express/A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:,” talk about the urn’s job as a historian.  Keats compares her job to his job as a poet.  She uses pictures to tell her tale, while he uses words and rhymes.  In his opinion, her way of telling the story is superior.

The next three lines are the first close look at the urn: “What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape / Of deities or mortals, or of both,? In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?”  This is talking about the actual artistic qualities of the urn.  Apparently, it is ringed with leaves, perhaps contains shapes of gods and men frolicking about in different areas of nature and life.

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”  These next three lines pose questions about the urn, asking what it is revealing about history, what stories is it telling.  Keats is telling the readers what is coming up.

Then comes the next stanza.  In the first two lines Keats says “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;” In this stanza, it appears he has turned the urn so one of the scenes is showing, a scene with flutes.  When he says the unheard melodies are sweeter than the heard, he is probably talking about how with the scene pictured on the urn, the music and fun you imagine is happening is perfect, while in real life often expectations are not reality.  Those people on the urn are actually living, in his mind, but simply frozen in time.

Lines 3-4 say “Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d / Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.”  In these lines, Keats is ordering the pipes to play to his imagination, which ties in with the previous lines.  In his imagination, any scenario he creates will be perfect in his mind.  The melodies have no tunes in the real world, but in the imaginary world they are the perfect notes.

The next two lines say “Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave / Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;”  In this, the youth is in an eternal spring beneath a tree that will never lose its leaves.  He is stuck in the same position, playing the same song but never being able to change.  For Keats, however, this is preferable.  The youth never has to experience the pain of passing time.

The next four lines say “Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss / Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve / She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”  This scene seems to be referencing a young man chasing a maiden.  This is probably what Keats was talking about earlier, with “mad pursuit.”  In this scene, the man is ever chasing the maiden, but Keats tells him not to despair.  Keats knows because they are frozen in time on the urn, he will never stop chasing the girl, and the girl will never lose her beauty.  It’s much different in the world where time marches on.

The third stanza begins with “Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu.”  Again, there is an almost Norman Rockwell feeling to the urn; it’s like what an ancient Greek version would look like.  The tree is stuck in perpetual spring.  Never will it lose its leaves.  Keats obviously thinks this is a good state to be in, never will the tree have to suffer through a winter.

“And, happy melodist, unwearied / For ever piping songs for ever new / More happy love! More happy, happy Love!” are the next three lines.  Once again, Keats is showing how happy he considers the scenes on the urn to be.  This melodist is playing a song that will never go out of style, with a pipe that will never break.  He is, and always will be, happy.  Keats envies him, and he calls for more happy love songs; he wants to feel what he imagines it would be like, a perfect happiness that never ends because time cannot touch it.

The next two lines state “For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d / For ever panting, and for ever young”.  This line seems to be talking about the birds and the bees.  Joy that man and woman can experience on the urn for ever and ever and never tires.  The next three lines also talk about this passion, but in the real world.  They say “All breathing human passion far above / That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy’d / A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”  In this one, Keats seems to be saying the people in the world “above,” those who are looking down on this urn, they, too, experience passion, but it ends.  Once the deed is done, it is over, and on comes the regret.  A fever, a dry mouth, a muddled brain are left behind, a stark contrast to the moment of happiness.  To Keats, the people on the urn, the men or gods chasing the maidens, are still in the moment of happiness.  They aren’t regretting any decisions right now, and they never will because for them time does not exist.

This is where stanza four begins with the line “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”  Keats has turned his attention off the scene of the lovers and onto one where a sacrifice is about to take place.  He wonders who is coming to watch it happen.  Lines 2-4 give a better picture of what is happening.  “To what green altar, O mysterious priest / Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?”  He asks the priest where he is taking the bellowing cow, but the priest will never reach the green altar because they are all frozen in time.  The heifer is outfitted with flowers, so she is probably destined for the gods as a holy sacrifice.

The next three lines say “What little town by the river or sea shore / Or mountain built with peaceful citadel / Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?”  The priest and cow have a following, a crowd coming with them to the altar.  Keats imagines what their little village would look like, desolate with all its people gone to worship their gods.  However, the town could be by a river, or a sea shore, or on a mountain; so the town is not pictured on the urn since we do not know what it looks like.

The last three lines state “And, little town, thy streets for evermore / Will silent be; and not a soul to tell / Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.”  In these, he address the sad state the town is left in for eternity.  It will be forever empty, its people will never return.  Although most of his words have been happy, yearning for a stop in time, these seem sad.  He feels sorry for the village, whose people are gone and never coming back.

In the fifth stanza, he begins with “O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede / Of marble men and maidens overwrought / With forest branches and the trodden weed.”  In these, he both praises and dismisses it. At first, he marvels at its shape and fairness.  But then he seems to think it too ornate, too fancy.  There are too many branches, the details are too well done, like it looks alive.  It almost sounds as if Keats is jealous of it, because the pictures it displays show what he cannot have: eternal happiness.

“Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!” say the next two lines.  He seems to be accusing the urn of teasing him into thoughts about eternity, like one would tease a knot out of a ball of string.  Keats does not like what he is thinking about eternity.  The eternity shown on the urn is not the eternity that we live in.  There, there is constant happiness and joy, while we must suffer here.

The next three lines state “When old age shall this generation waste / Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe / Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st”.  Keats imagines even after everyone in his generation has died, this urn will still be around.  The problems of the current generation will be no more, but the new generation will have different ones.  Even still, the urn will stay the same.  In fact, it gives the same advice to every generation.

The advice is in the last two lines of the poem, which say “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” He is not saying simple truth and beauty are the same.  He is saying beauty, what is the meaning to our lives, is the same as truth, which is the meaning for our being here.  These thoughts can be had while looking at the urn, thoughts of life, regrets, and eternity.  No matter what generation looks upon it, they are all going to see that, feel what Keats felt.  To him, you don’t need to know the truth of the history books, or the celebrities, or the medical magazines, you simply don’t need the truths that are passed down from generation to generation.

I enjoyed “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”  Although I certainly did not agree with its suggestion that we throw out the truths of the past, I do understand his longing to live in a moment in time that is always happy. Those happy people on the urn represent what I’ll never have until Heaven: eternal bliss.  But at least I am assured in my eternity; Keats is not so lucky.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” addresses much deeper issues than can be seen on first glance.  Questioning truth, examining eternity, and wondering about beauty are often not seen in poets of today.  Keats throws out what had been taught in previous generations and focuses on the one thing he believes to be constant: beauty.

Poverty of Charles Dickens in Great Expectations

Leave a reply

Michaela Seaton Romero

Charles Dickens was an influential writer whose work was heavily influenced by the poverty he experienced and witnessed.  Great Expectations emphasizes this theme of poverty.  In many ways, the main character mirrors Dickens himself and his own struggle with poverty.

An orphan, the main character Pip lives with his abusive sister and her husband, the village blacksmith.  Over the course of the book Pip runs across escaped convicts, jilted old ladies, and cold-hearted beautiful women.  He goes from his marshy village of Kent to bustling London.  He goes from one of the poorest of the poor to rich and must acclimate to that society.

Dickens is similar to Pip in many ways.  Although he lived with his mother and father during his childhood, he spent part of his childhood in Kent, just like Pip.  They also lived in during the same time period, when the Industrial Revolution was taking place and there was great social upheaval.  He also moved to London, just like Pip, although he moved there earlier than Pip does in Great Expectations.  Likely he met many different type of folks in London that gave rise to characters like Joe and Estella.

Dickens, unlike many other famous people, found relative success during his lifetime, and he had to adjust to society as a person with money.  Pip also had to adjust to gentleman society, and there were strict rules to follow.  Climbing the social ladder required learning a whole new set of skills and expectations as Pip soon realizes as he studies to be a gentleman.  Dickens also would have experienced the disparity between the desperately poor and those who were well off, or at least moderately so.

Pip studies to be a blacksmith under Joe, but he feels himself too good for this after getting a taste of the genteel life with Estella and Miss Havisham.  Dickens also worked a job he did not feel put all his skills to use, at a blacking warehouse when his father was in debtor’s prison.  Eventually he is able to gain more education and raise his status and wealth, just like Pip does.

The entirety of the book is centered on social status and wealth, or lack of it.  Pip’s purpose in life is to gain recognition and marry a woman of higher status.  He doesn’t just care about money, he cares about where the money came from.  When he finds out his fortune is due to a convict he helped once, he is disgusted.

Dickens’s status also rose, and he was able to chronicle the trials and problems he experienced in the character of Pip.  Even though he became famous, Dickens’s poverty had a tremendous impact on his life, and this can be seen in Great Expectations.  Pip desires social improvement, but when he finally attains it, he finds himself still feeling empty; there are still the basic immorals and depravity he saw as a blacksmith’s apprentice.  Dickens is trying to say no matter how much money you have, it is moral improvement that makes a difference, not money.


Bibliography

Zhou, Linda. “About the Author: Charles Dickens.” Great Expectations. Web. 4 Mar. 2015. <http://greatexpectationsnovel.weebly.com/about-the-author.html&gt;.

Charles Dickens’s Work and Poverty

Leave a reply

Michaela Seaton Romero

The Victorian era produced great authors, such as the Brontë sisters, William Thackeray, and George Eliot.  However, the most well-known Victorian author is Charles Dickens.  Dickens’s work was heavily influenced by the poverty he had experienced.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, the second of eight children.  He had a rather idyllic childhood, and his parents were even able to pay for him to go to private schools.  He read constantly, burning through books such as Robinson Crusoe and The Arabian Nights.  This time came to an end, however, at the tender age of twelve, when poverty grabbed ahold of his family.  His father, who had been living beyond his means, was forced into debtor’s prison.  Dickens had to leave school, as he could no longer pay for it.  Instead, he worked ten hour days in a shoe blacking factory.  He and his older sister worked hard to support their mother and younger siblings, who had moved in with their father in prison, and pay off dad’s debts.

His life in the factory greatly influenced his future works.  He is quoted as saying “How I could be so easily cast away at such an age.”  This thought can be seen in many of his works, as he shows good people, children especially, who are caught in the grips of poverty and cannot escape.  He struggles with the idea those who could have helped, like the upper and middle classes, did nothing even for little children.  Dickens became interested in social reform and labor conditions.  As stated in the previous essay, factory conditions were poor, resulting in medical problems and death, and no doubt Dickens saw these happen at his work.

The sights young Dickens saw in the factory and around the deplorable conditions the poor lived in heavily influenced his fiction and other works.  The view middle and upper class Victorians held was poor folk were all criminals, but Charles Dickens’s books challenged this.

While working and living as a poor person, Dickens loved people who were poor, and he himself was desperately poor.  This poverty pushed him to succeed in later life.  Dickens knew he was a person, and there was no difference between him and middle class people, except their income.  Just because people were poor did not automatically make them criminals.

In Oliver Twist, Dickens confronts the realities of child labor and orphans.  Orphanages were rough places, often cold, disease-ridden, and brutal.  In one famous scene, Oliver Twist is chosen to ask their caregiver for more food.  For this, he is beaten.  In Great Expectations Dickens challenges the view people’s social status makes them who they are; rather, people’s characters define their worth.  Pip, the main character, is a poor boy whose mind is messed with by a manipulative old woman and her protégée.

A Christmas Carol shows the dire consequences of ignoring poverty and is probably his work that demonstrates poverty’s effects most clearly, especially poverty involving children.  Tiny Tim is a crippled child, whose father works for Scrooge.  Scrooge is told unless Tiny Tim gets help, he will die soon.  Children back then were imprisoned by the poverty they were experiencing, and most would never escape this life.

This could be representing Dickens himself in his earlier years of poverty.  In the A Christmas Carol Scrooge ends up helping Tiny Tim and his family, but Dickens knows not all children are so lucky.  Both Dickens and Tiny Tim were lucky to escape.  Dickens wanted the public to realize the awful life of children stuck in poverty, so, hopefully, they would become enraged and do something to change the conditions.

In A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim’s father works for Scrooge.  He struggles to make enough money to feed all of his children and give them a good Christmas.  Although he never goes into debtor’s prison, he works for a man who makes his living putting others into debt, so he sees the drastic effects.  Dickens’s father went to debtor prison, and he uses his experiences to show why people did not want to go there.

Also in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge encounters two ragged street children.  One is Ignorance and the other Want.  The spirit tells him although both are dangerous, Ignorance is the more dangerous.  On his forehead is written “Doom.”  This symbolizes Dickens’s view on poverty: if the middle- and upper-class people never learn about the deplorable conditions poor folk live in, then they will never do anything to change it because they don’t know something is wrong.

Charles Dickens was the most well-known Victorian author, and his books were heavily influenced by the poverty he had experienced.  This poverty drove him to succeed in later life and also made him challenge the popular beliefs about the poor in his books.  Charles Dickens was heavily influenced by poverty, and in return, poverty is heavily featured in his works.

Bibliography

“Charles Dickens.” Wikipedia. 3 Dec. 2014. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens&gt;.

“Charles Dickens Rolls in Grave Each Time Scroogey Ed Reformers Dismiss the Effects of Poverty.” Teacher Biz. 31 July 2013. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. <https://teacherbiz.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/charles-dickens-rolls-in-grave-each-time-scroogey-ed-reformers-dismiss-the-effects-of-poverty/&gt;.

Warren, Andrea. “Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London.” Teen Reads. The Book Report Network, 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. <http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/charles-dickens-and-the-street-children-of-london&gt;.