--Child & Fuller write about New York City life, finding much to complain of. What is it that they (individually or separately) dislike about city life?--Child, at least, also finds things to praise about city life. What is it that she likes?
--Both Child & Fuller write about the city poor, each hoping to improve their conditions. What do you find similar or dissimilar about their attitudes and/or strategies for engaging with urban poverty?
Child and Fuller share a concern for the way society treats the poor, but I felt that part of the difference came from Child’s emotional writing. In contrast to Fuller, Child seems dramatic, which fits with her concern for the larger causes of poverty.
ReplyDeleteFuller’s story about the boy with an infant serves to set up her main point about improving the lives of the poor—that the wealthier bystanders, including the “well-dressed woman,” are merely intruding in their lives. She says, “In the little instance with which we begun, no help was asked, unless by the sight of the timid little boy’s old jacket” (130).
I thought this point was in particular disagreement with Child’s opening story in “Letter XIV” about the “little ragged street urchin” (83). This imagination of his life that Child indulges in is exactly what Fuller warns her readers about—by imagining the urchin’s life, Child is similar to the wealthy woman cited by Fuller. Child says, “I stood, looking after him, as he went shivering along. Imagination followed him to the miserable cellar where he probably slept on dirty straw; I saw him flogged, after his day of cheerless toil, because he had failed to bring home pence enough for his parents’ grog” (83). And later: “God grant the little shivering carrier-boy a brighter destiny than I have foreseen for him” (84). She is one step away from the intrusion that Fuller describes; though she doesn’t lecture the urchin, her assumptions are merely a variation on this idea. And, she does cross this line (once again without a lecture) when she gives the family money: “I obey the kindly impulse may make the world none the better—perchance some iota the worse; yet I must needs follow it—I cannot otherwise” (85). However, then Child goes into her own criticism of the oppression of the poor by institutions, which I feel is valid.
While Fuller places most blame on individual people, especially the rich, Child takes on the bigger burden of society as a whole for systematically oppressing. Fuller cites examples of more polite interactions with the poor, notably the French and Catholic countries, claiming that they lessen the divide between rich and poor through acts of charity. However, her appeal to fix the injustice in the United States is directed at the individual’s actions: “Blessed be he or she who has passed through this world, not only with an open purse and willingness to render the aid of mere outward benefits, but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the downcast, and enlighten the dull by words of comfort and looks of love” (130). Child, however, is concerned with the bigger picture. She tackles journalism, police, prisons, and occasionally the individual, but her main focus is the unequal feeling from society that causes people (especially criminals) to behave the way they do. She gives the example of the three “murderers,” which helps make this point more salient.
Both Fuller and Child acknowledge that it is wrong to treat the poor in a manner of degradation and that charity can be exhibited in sympathy and kind interactions (in other words, it need not be strictly a financial gift). While Fuller seem to simply touch on the sad issue of this lack of humanity, Fuller goes further to argue that this degradation is a key player (and perhaps the sole contributor) to the delinquency that often accompanies poverty. She believes that each human is innately endowed with the power to transform him or herself as an acorn transforms into an oak tree, if only given the proper resources; if denied these resources, it will be stinted (and, presumably, will deteriorate before it becomes something great). It is not society’s duty to look down on the acorn that is not “born” in close vicinity of nurturing resources. It is society’s job to bring the water and the soil to that acorn so that it can grow to its full potential and in so doing become a functioning part of society. Child asserts that if the poor are not exposed to good influences, it is not a matter of if they resort to a delinquent amoral existence, but when, and that aside from neglecting to provide these positive influences, society commits the greater offense of encouraging the very same behavior which they later punish discriminately: “When, oh when, will men learn that society makes and cherishes the very crimes it so fiercely punishes, and in punishing reproduces? (84)” We must come together and embrace “the human family” (196). We must understand the human emotions that we all share and illuminate these emotions in the hearts of those whose darker emotions have, for one reason or another, gotten the best of them. We must admit our own fault in this matter and work with ardor towards strategies of prevention. Only then, argues Child (and Fuller, in ways), can we begin to absolve society of its sins.
ReplyDeleteDespite the similar subjects addressed in Fuller and Child’s works, their approaches could not have been more different. I agree with Haley’s observation that Fuller seems to place blame on the individual, while Child blames society as a whole. It was perhaps for this reason that Child’s argument was so much less satisfying for me. Although Fuller does seem to blame the rich, for not caring properly for the poor, the responsibility seems to lie with the individuals within the group. It is not a total reform which Fuller seems to be advocating, but simple respect for others, which I think is something that everyone can agree too. Because of this, when Fuller addresses, at the end of her work, those people “who are willing to rise above” (Fuller 130) their “ignorance,” it seems to present an honest possibility of hope.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, Child’s argument struck me as considerably more depressing. Perhaps because she is advocating a major change in social values, Child seems to believe she has to take a bleaker outlook. Since she blames society as a whole, Child’s work is not able to offer the hope of direct resolution. Instead, she offers vague hopes that things will become better eventually, using religion as her main argument. Because she takes such a wide view of the reform, it seems that the alleviative that Fuller suggested, common courtesy and goodwill, would not have been enough for Child. Even if individuals were to reform, the system would still be “a great school for crime” (Child 193), since it would still support the societal values she blames. While Child does attempt to give convey some hope in her writing, such as the story of the Providence runaway, I personally found that the contrast between this and her musings on the inability of individuals to escape the “great wheel of society” (196) made such hopes appear fleeting (especially when she suggests at the end that the boy may even have been kidnapped).
But even though the two works had differing strategies, I found it interesting that both tried to make the issues of the cities a problem for the entire United States. When both Fuller and Child cite other countries or religions that act more politely or charitably to the poor (mainly Catholics), they seem to set the United States in direct opposition to these, as if to say that these other countries are acting in a way the United States as a whole should emulate. Reform, be it among individuals or upon all of society, becomes the responsibility of all the “free States of America” (194). In this way, the two seem to extrapolate the ills they see in certain areas onto the nation at large, and their suggestions for reform can be seen as general suggestions to the populace.
#2 What Child finds to praise about City Life
ReplyDeleteI can see why Anoff considers Child's letters depressing--the individual moments of hope and social freedom she presents seem unrealistic and improbable as a path for societal change, especially when considered in contrast to her criticism of the prison system. All the same, I think Child herself is hopeful. She praises the parties in Florence, where people may come and go freely without specific invitation and do largely as they please. Rather than merely describing an ideal she has envisioned, with this anecdote Child presents an actual case in which society operates more freely. If she criticizes the fear of public opinion, it is in hopes that that her reader will agree and react. In fact she writes in the form of a call to action: "If thy heart yearns for love, be loving; if thou wouldst free mankind, be free; if thou wouldst have a brother frank to thee, be frank to him." Religion plays a part in her own understanding of society, but her arguments expresses a relatively secular "Be the change you want to see in the world" kind of attitude. Regardless of the depth of the problems she sees, her constructive criticism maintains an uplifting tone.
The tale Child relates at the end about the Providence runaway reads more as a parable than as reality; I found myself questioning whether she meant his story to be taken literally or merely as a hypothetical. Yet what she herself draws from it--that people are astonishingly good--ties in with her opinions about crime being society-programmed rather than in any way intentional. As many issues as she has with society, Child holds a high view of human nature. If human nature is not the root of the problem but is rather hindered by society, that is a hopeful thought indeed! Society at least can change--good, steady-minded people can change it--and in homes such as those the runaway visited as well as the Society of Friends, we see the city at its best through human kindness.
Although Fuller and Child both show compassion for the poor, they go about persuading their readers in different manners. Like Hayley mentioned already, Child uses a more emotional and dramatic tone to appeal to the better natures of a Christian (and perhaps, female) audience, while Fuller takes a strong tone and narrow focus of a specific incidence as an opportunity to instruct her readers on the ways in which she feels the poor want to be addressed. By comparison, Child seems to approach the problem of the city poor on an abstract level, because although she has more encounters with the city's poor and sees many of the infrastructures meant to help the poor, she doesn't get much more specific in her advice than suggesting that society and not the poor are to blame for their impoverished states. She even does what Fuller tells us we should not, and assumes that a woman sitting near two children is their mother and that she wants the aid of Child. Fuller also advocates that the poor be treated with compassion, as equals and not as inferiors. (Although, doesn't lumping all the impoverished into a group and then referring to them by it (i.e. "the poor") suggest that Fuller does think of this group of people as separate from all others?)
ReplyDeleteChild seems to back off her criticism at the end of her second letter, saying that she understands the necessity of improvements to prisons and progressive meliorations in the criminal code, but longs for a world in which they would not need to exist. Meanwhile, Fuller gives a more concrete aspiration for New York society: that they become more like the French, learning to treat all men as equals, and more like the Catholic countries, which do not so easily separate the poor from the rich, especially where the eyes of God are concerned.
Child’s description of bleak, poverty-stricken city life, in contrast to her glowing description of nature and the country, sets the stage for her social criticism, which focuses on the crime and poverty of the city. The city, a concentrated microcosm of all of society, is the natural focus for Child’s commentary on the cyclical and detrimental results of America’s class system. While life amongst nature supports a life of innocence and goodness, qualities found innately in all people, Child claims that life in the city drains the poor and the downtrodden of these natural qualities: “Society with its unequal distribution, its perverted education, its manifold injustice, its cold neglect its biting mockery, has taken from them the gifts of God” (Child 189). The laws and norms of society have been formed and enforced by men of means. The poor are so far removed from these men and their lifestyles, and so thwarted in any attempts to join them, they fail to see the justice in the justice system: “Their law-jargon conveyed no meaning to his ear, awakened no slumbering moral sense, taught him no clear distinction between right and wrong; but from their cold, harsh tones, and heartless merriment, he drew the inference that they were enemies” (Child 83). And so the cyclic war between poor vagabond and man of law begin, and never seem to end.
ReplyDeleteRather than blame the individual, Child places blame on society as a whole. She proposes that we must change “the structure of society, that will diminish the temptations to vice, and increase the encouragements to virtue. If we can abolish poverty, we shall have taken the greatest step toward the abolition of crime” (Child 192). It seems as though in her proposal to diminish temptations to vice she means for society to move towards increased equality and less starkly divided social classes. In a statement that also resonates in regard to contemporary American society, Child says, “The world would be in a happier condition if legislators spent half as much time and labour to prevent crime, as they do to punish it” (Child 193). Child seems to believe that the majority of society, the men of authority and money, must stop waging war with the poor and the alienated. Instead, we must “dare to throw ourselves on each other’s hearts” (Child 207), and then “the image of heaven would be reflected all over the face of this earth” (Child 207).
Child’s sentiment of kindness towards one another, regardless of class, is similar to Fuller’s suggestion for more acts of humble charity. While Fuller does not address the malfunctioning of society as a whole, she does critique the affluent’s tendency to disregard their “benefit of refined education and society” (Fuller 129) and treat their poor neighbor with the utmost condescension and rudeness, even while exhibiting concern or performing acts of charity. Fuller suggests that the way to remedy the conditions of this country’s urban poor is “not only with an open purse” (Fuller 130), “but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the downcast, and enlighten the dull” (Fuller 130). Fuller believes that there is little hope for the poor to rise out of poverty and immorality if they are not afforded any respect, which is depicted through politeness and civility. It seems to follow that if we continue to begrudgingly and patronizingly hand out charity, the poor will never take it upon themselves to provide for themselves because they will surely lose all sense of self-respect and self-subsistence.
Both Fuller and Child have a lot to criticize and complain about when it comes to poverty in city life. Fuller focuses in on one small incident invovling a small child with a ragged and worn coat holding a baby, in which people are gathered around and a rich woman is yelling at him for being irresponsible. I understand Fuller's point about respect for the poor and agree that this woman should not be criticizing the boy. Instead, she should be showing him compassion and offer help... but I couldn't help but feel that she presented a weak argument since her example invovled a child. The rich woman harping on him may have acted completely differently had a grown man been holding the infant. Maybe the rich woman felt it her motherly duty to scold him, as any mother would (and probably should) do to a young child. Fuller seems to put most of the blame for the bad treatment of the poor on the individual.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Child puts the blame for poor treatment of the poverty-stricken on society as a whole. She gives us a more dramatic, yet somewhat abstract picture of city life. While Fuller focuses on one specific incident and gives us her thoughts on it, Child uses very descriptive language to paint a detailed picture of city life, and points out many things she notices while walking through the city. she claims that "it's sad waling in the city" and "the loneliness of the soul is deeper, and far more restless, than in the solitude of the mighty forest" (82). Child also seems to address the issue that most of the poor are immigrants, while Fuller doesn't really bring it up.