Project 2

Marshall Wilkerson
E337L
01/03/08

Black Tales, True Beauty

With the birth of the Victorian era came a newborn focus on personal spiritual introspection, as authors like Carlyle, Mills, and Buckley shared with the literal world fresh views on personal morals and self worth. It would seem out of place then, that at this same time arose a new interest in human interaction with animals in Victorian England, evinced by the creation of organizations such as the Anti-Vivisectionist League and the RSPCA, and expressed through works such as Horace Bushnell's Essays on Animals. Yet, in reading Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, it becomes apparent that human interaction with animals came under greater public scrutiny during this time because human interaction with animals is part of what it is to be human. Under that assertion, let us investigate how Sewell's portrayal of animal life in Victorian England evinced a changing social view of the human condition itself, in both secular and spiritual realms of existence.

In the realm of the material in Victorian England, almost every aspect of life was changing. The Industrial Revolution ushered in massive changes in daily life, as the middle class swelled in numbers and social power, weakening the age-old class system's regime on western civilization. It quickly became apparent that fluid thought and readiness for change would be the necessary attributes of anyone hoping for success, lest they be held back by an accession to traditionalism like Black Beauty's mother, shown by her statement that “we are only horses, and don't know.”1Sewell stresses something becoming apparent to Victorian thinkers at the time, that man must think, that he must reason, that he must question and learn to succeed. Old traditions of servility were dying off, the common man no longer had a lord to do his thinking for him, and therefore had to learn to think for himself, or fall by the wayside.

It was with this growth in thought, first about himself, and then about the world around him, that the common Victorian man found himself thinking about the creatures that populated his life. And with a growing awareness of personal responsibility for their actions, men began to question their own moral right to do as they pleased with their surroundings, to question what was right and wrong about their own actions. It is in this vein of thought that Sewell promotes the idea that it was man's responsibility to do right by any and all in his purview, whether they be human or beast. She stresses the idea of personal responsibility for public interests with assertions such as; “Don't you know that it [ignorance] is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness?”2, “if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”3, “every man must look after his own soul; you can't lay it at another man's door like a foundling”4, and “Everybody look after himself, and take care of number one...is a selfish heathenish saying”5. Sewell asserts various new moral outlooks that are birthed in the Victorian era's novel view that man is responsible for himself and the world around him, and it is within his power to change that which is wrong. She emphasizes the personal moral power of each individual man, giving outlet to it in the beauty and power of such a gorgeous hero as Black Beauty, depicted here.6 Even more importantly, the concept of wrong is being extended beyond applying to just the human, as mankind begins to accept that he is part of his world, rather than simply master of all he surveys.

Admittedly, none of these moral cautionings would have been able to change mind of the common Victorian man on their own, not when the callous use of animals was a major economic linchpin in England. Knowing this full well themselves, the leaders of the humanitarian movement turned to an all too familiar secular power to further their cause, racism. As a nation, England was known, at the turn of the 19th century, as “the hell of dumb animals”.7 English naturalist Edward Jesse wrote that “of all the nations of Europe, our own countrymen are perhaps the least inclined to treat the brute creation with tenderness.”8 Even Queen Victoria herself is quoted admitting that “the English are inclined to be more cruel to animals than some other civilized nations are.”9 It is strange then, that with such a reputation at the beginning of the century, that Ritvo later quotes that “to an increasing part of the race, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, [a] sentiment of tenderness for those of the sentient lower creatures...has become an element in the spiritual life”.10

While this change of belief was to some small extent due to actual changes in English law concerning animal rights, the real cause of this shift in outlook was purely propaganda. Realizing that the common Victorian man couldn't be persuaded to humane treatment of animals through direct moral argument, true humanitarians turned to manipulation. By asserting that cruelty to animals was a fault of lesser, foreign, non-Anglo peoples, humanitarian leaders began to guilt Englishmen into being kinder. The English, ever egocentric people, jumped at the opportunity to lord yet another positive quality over their neighboring nations, taking every opportunity to show their superior moral tenets in the face of foreigner's savage disregard for the animal kingdom. While the means were less than benevolent, the ends were what humanitarian leaders were interested in, and those ends were met quite nicely.

At the same time that Humanitarians were bending the forces of racism and nationalism to their ends, they drew on the Bible, and religion's dominating power in Victorian England, to serve their ends. As much as the Bible is full of references to arbitrary animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, it was not a difficult proposition to extract from its parables a call for the gentle treatment of the flora and fauna of the world. The New Testament especially emphasized compassion and love for all creation, and depictions of Jesus often involved the animal world, as shown here.11 Dr. Jehuda Feliks states in the introduction of his book The Animal World of the Bible that “to illustrate their words or to beautify their messages, these prophets created images, related parables and fables drawn from the animal and plant world around them”12, a fact which made it easy for Humane Organizations to draw direct passages from the Bible to support their cause. It became, over the course of the 19th century, morally and spiritually deplorable to be openly cruel to animals. While some economic endeavors were able to hold out for a period of time against this tidal wave of changed feeling for the beasts of the world, the crueler aspects of human interaction with animals, such as cock fights and bull-baiting, soon found themselves under increasing legal censure.

This method of relying on animals to tell moral stories was far from limited to the Bible by this point in time. Aesop's Fables, shown at right13, was a famous example of the use of the animal kingdom to tell parables, and the Victorian era's writers became positively prolific on the theme of animals in moral tales, leading us back to Black Beauty. With such proliferation of moral tales, came even greater ease in connecting animals to human morality. Black Beauty didn't limit its reach to purely animal-human interactions, Sewell comments directly, by use of an animal perspective, on temperance, greed, diligence, honesty, and loyalty. She took a whole slew of pressing moral concerns of the age and concentrated them in and around human interaction with animals, emphasizing the point that how man treated beast reflected on how he treated his fellow man. Such a connection served the needs of Humanitarians excellently, as it served to help extend the concept of fairness and kindness to animals in a spiritual and moral sense, the exact goal towards which they were working.

Now, ironic as it is that such a noble enterprise would come with spiritual and moral downsides, the Humanitarian quest did come with a price, and it did have its failings. By using racism and nationalist propaganda to further their ends, the well-wishers of the time created yet another platform from which the English could judge their “savage” neighbors, allowing them another avenue by which to persecute and condemn their fellow man, all in the name of “protecting” the same animals that they themselves were so utterly cruel to. On top of this, by using the Bible, a book largely focused on domesticated animals, Humanitarians failed to create any sort of equality among which animals deserved kindness. Even Sewell's novel, as well-meaning as it is, fails to mention any class of animal apart from large mammals, and this sentiment still remains strongly rooted in western thinking, showing even as late as the late 20th century in a passage from the preface of Lulu Wiley's Mammals of the Bible, where he states “I have limited my subject to zoology, and have narrowed it to the Mammalia, the highest of the classes”.14While it is by no means a failure that Humane thinkers managed to about-face the very idea of animal and human interaction in Victorian England, it is lamentable that they did it in a fashion which brought further detriment to interactions between human and human, and did so only to serve the cause of one small section of the myriad aspects of life all around them.

Be that as it may, the few truly Humane individuals of the time did the best they could with what tools they had at their disposal, and accomplished great things for their cause, because in the end, their cause was a human cause. By bettering the lives of the creatures under his power, man bettered himself, a goal held paramount by the changing morays of social thought and interaction in the Victorian era. Men began to aim to be like the Johnathon Manly of Sewell's novel. They aimed to be strong, independent, self-made, but kinda and gentle to the world around them, men deserving of respect and honor, a concept reserved for the higher classes before this time, and they came to see the humane treatment of animals as a part of that overall idea, much to the betterment of the state of creatures of England.

Word Count: 1807
Quote Count: 197

1Sewell, Black Beauty, page 8
2Sewell, 74
3Sewell, 164
4Sewell, 156
5Sewell, 67
6http://horses-etc.com/images/Anthem_006a.jpg
7Ritvo, Animal Estate, page 126
8Ritvo, 126
9Ritvo, 126
10Ritvo, 126
11http://www.flagsrus.org/images/e/13775.jpg
12Feliks, The Animal World of the Bible, Introduction
13http://aesop.magde.info/images/DDailyIllustr.jpg
14Wiley, Mammals of the Bible, Preface

Tea Party

Chaos:

The above image is a work of art designed to show the beauty of order and chaos intermingled, a beauty which was all too apparent this past Saturday at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party Bump hosted in PAR. The event itself was delightful, and resembled the chaos of the literary episode superbly. People shuffled in confused, just as Alice was confused and unsure, shown by her thought upon approaching the March Hare's residence that "Suppose it should be raving mad after all? I almost wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead!" (Carroll, 67). Nobody knew what was going on, least of all the performers, it was absolutely delightful. The repeated renditions of the scene gave truth to the statement of the Hatter that "it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles." (Carroll, 74). I had a blast, in fact listening to those two little girls laugh at us may well stand as the highlight of this entire semester. The entire thing was great, and crazy, and will stand in my mind as an excellent memory of this class, especially watching people file out slowly, all the more confused for the entire episode, much like Alice, yet each "looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after" (Carroll, 76). Oh, and below I've posted a side by side of Conrad and the Mad Hatter, in appreciation of his excellent and hilarious performance, he did an excellent job and made the entire thing smooth and entertaining, props to you Conrad!

P1: Option B

“All the world seemed turning to satire”1

This aerial view of Oxford [2] seems to embody the very essence of how many feel about the concept of the term “university”. I say this because I myself had, and still have in some ways, that selfsame view. Upon looking closely, it becomes painfully apparent that the entirety of Oxford seems shadowed, dark and gloomy, yet the lawn in the bottom left corner shows quite clearly that this photo was taken in full daylight! Imagine then, how this campus must look while shadowed by the constant cloud and rain of mainland England. This fact of appearance, in conjunction with the fact that Oxford is the quintessential example of the western “university”, leaves no wonder as to how it became a common view of the everyday man that these seats of higher learning were beyond reach, venerable and foreboding, objects of ponderous weight in the mind's eye. And not only the common man, but the very nobles, professors and gentlemen of those same institutions allowed, even promoted, this view to be held, so far as to adopt the view themselves. The entire situation fed upon itself, worsening generation upon generation, until universities seemed totally out of reach, in fact beyond the very existence of, the common man, creating “a class...who knew not the colleges, nor their works, nor their ways”.3 As this view was birthed in England, and we in turn as Americans are Her children, we were raised with that selfsame view, and it persists to this day.
In direct opposition to this view arose the vision of providing, for the public, an open seat of higher learning dedicated to the people, and supported by their government. As a group so very long cut off from the high-minded ideal of university teaching, the common man jumped at the opportunity to provide for himself and his posterity the priceless education so long denied to his kind. The depth of the importance of this issue shows in its being an issue in the birth of American revolution, and further in the birth of our own great state, as the Texas constitution specifically states “The Legislature shall as soon as practicable establish...a University of the first class”4. It is in this strange and contradictory dichotomy of the concept of the university that we now rest, viewing it as both a place open to us, and out of our reach, and from the conflict of these two views arises that same fear in us today as rested in Jude's heart during his childhood.
This then, is possibly the greatest similarity between the experience between Jude and his beloved ideal of the university, and my own experience with college. For we both spent our childhood preparing as best we could for a place which in turn found us utterly unprepared. Upon arriving at the University of Texas, I found myself standing before it's seal [5]. As much as that view of Oxford, I found this seal cold and daunting. I knew not the inscription circling the shield, nor the symbolism of all its many aspects, I knew only that they must indeed mean something. This served to strengthen my sense that not only the college itself, but the entire concept of a university was far beyond my pitiable mental scope. After the constant fear of rejection incipient in my very soul throughout the complicated and daunting process of applying for college, to find myself in a place I did not feel I understood or belonged seemed to give truth to all the terrors I had heretofore faced and overcome. In reading Hardy's tale, I could all too easily identify with Jude's fear, his lack of confidence, his despair, because I have felt, in fact still do feel, those very same things. Much like poor Father Time, the children of our generation have been raised to “see all [the world's] terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them”6. From first grade until the summer before my acceptance into college, over twelve years, I was never without the knowledge of the price of failure in my attempts to achieve acceptance into a seat of higher learning. My parents, my teachers, my friends, all served to daily renew my fears of failure, and who would not be a basket case after twelves years spent thus? I distinctly remember knowing that I was too young to have such fear in me as I felt, to spend third grade terrified of living my life as a construction worker, with the entirety of my family disappointed and disgusted. It is in those moments that such inner reflections arise in us as they did in Father Time, to find ourselves wondering “it would be better to be out o' the world than in it, wouldn't it?”7. So in the sorrow of Jude and his family I find reflections of my own difficulties where college is concerned, but my life is not a Victorian novel, so all is not misery and loss for me.

In fact, quite the opposite when my mind is consumed by something the university is teaching me, rather than something about the university which I have been taught. All too completely I agree with Newman in his assertion that “knowledge is capable of being its own end”8, and I take great joy in losing myself in the material my classes provide me, in the knowledge I am bequeathed. And beyond that there is simply the atmosphere of the place, the sense of being here, for Newman also stresses that in a seat of multiple schools of learning “is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, which the student also breathes, though in his own case he only pursues a few sciences out of the multitude”9. There is such a simple joy in being here, in being part of the university, that I would give anything for Jude to have known it as well, if only for an instant. In fact, that is the greatest part of what is lacking in comparing Hardy's tale of college woes to my own experience, for Jude himself never gets to know what it is like to be a true part of a university, which is all on its own a life-changing thing.

In contrast to that major difference, which is in truth a single difference between myself and but one of many many Victorian portrayals of higher learning, is an all-encompassing similarity in the form of my being a student of the college of liberal arts. As we have discussed in class, in Victorian times to go to university was synonymous with receiving a liberal education, for that was what a university provided. Furthermore, the concept of a liberal education has not changed in all the many centuries since its birth, and continues to be much the same today, creating a direct connection between myself and my experiences and the experiences of men such as Newman and Hardy. It is because of this connection that I do not see Jude's vague aim to “better himself” at a university as vague at all, for that is exactly the goal at which a liberal education is aimed, an overall bettering of its student. While viewed from an outsider, my own statement may seem just as vague as Jude's own plans, I cannot agree, having followed the path of a liberal education with my own two feet. There is nothing vague about it, and while the liberal college does not provide instruction in any set of skills specific to a certain job, such as those provided in the colleges of engineering, business, and communication, it does provide skills that would be useful in any of those areas. The liberal arts take to heart Newman's insistence “that all branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself”10, it teaches us, to take the words from our good professor Bump's mouth, how to learn. Can there be any contention then, that this skill is applicable to any school of learning? Because of this, my college experience is quite similar to the vision of college that Hardy and Newman create, where one learns a little about many different things, and is enriched purely by the knowledge that surrounds him. This vision of liberal arts is a tradition born of its origins, as evinced in this illustration of the portrayal of the “septes artes liberales” or the seven liberal arts of grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy [11 ]. While the latter four subjects are no longer within the purview of the basic liberal arts, the former three most indubitably are, and they are three human endeavors for which I hold the greatest respect and love imaginable, just the same as Jude in his early bright-eyed optimism, and just the same as Newman in his unending respect for knowledge itself.

Total Word Count: 1602
Quote word count: 121

1 Page 135, Hardy's Jude the Obscure
2 http://www.sgc.ox.ac.uk/Oxford%20Photos/Oxford_Aerial.jpg
3Page 299, Hardy's Jude the Obscure
4Constitution of Texas, 1876, Article VII, Section 10
5http://www.edb.utexas.edu/kdpdelta/UTSeal.gif
6Page 264, Hardy's Jude the Obscure
7Page 261, Hardy's Jude the Obscure
8Page 309, Newman's “The Idea of a University”, 1852, Discourse 5. Knowledge its Own End
9Page 308, Newman's “The Idea of a University”, 1852, Discourse 5. Knowledge its Own End
10Page 308, Newman's “The Idea of a University”, 1852, Discourse 5. Knowledge its Own End
11 http://www.rgle.org.uk/Septem-artes-liberales_Herrad-von-Landsberg_Hortus-delicarium_1180.jpg

tryin it out

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