If Bedlam could be suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down on the space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose road to business every morning lies through Newgate-street, or the Old Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing a hasty glance on its small, grated windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet these same men, day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy depository of the guilt and misery of London (1).
The response Dickens had at seeing this prison reminds me of the picture Carlyle paints of the work houses of London in his work, Past and Present. Both pieces depict a truly dismal sight. Dickens uses great detail to advocate for better treatment of inmates in London prisons. Dickens describes one of the inmates as "a more poverty-stricken object" and "a creature so borne down in soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution". However, similar to Carlyle, Dickens mentions the different treatment among the classes of prisoners. The higher class prisoners are confined to more suitable quarters (6). However, he does not go into much detail as to the exact differences.
Dickens invokes a more emotional when he tells of the dreams of one of the prisoners:
Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every side—how different from the stone walls of Newgate (10)!
I didn't really see the horror in Dickens' prison description. He saw hopelessness and pain in their facial expressions, but none of his prisoners seemed to be suffering physically. The people I felt most sorry for were the ones visiting the prison who still have to deal with the poverty and starvation in the outside world.
ReplyDeleteDeborah,
ReplyDeleteGood text to explore, and I like the connection you make to Carlyle's writings. In this post you tend to provide a lot of quotations, which is OK, except there is not sufficient analysis and discussion to accompany. As a result your post seems a bit padded. Especially at the end it is important to end not with a quotation, but with your interpretation of and commentary on it.