Charles Dickens' "A Visit to Newgate"

As was mentioned in podcast #9, the early Victorians were influenced by growing up in the Romantic Era. As such, many tell stories in eyewitness account mode. Charles Dickens channels Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by writing “ A Visit to Newgate” in the first person. He writes, “We saw the prison, and saw the prisoners; and what we did see, and what we thought, we will tell at once in our own way” (2). Dickens’ format certainly made much more of an impression on the reader than other modes of reporting could have done. Dickens contrasts his report with others, “We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found at length in numerous reports of numerous committees…” (1). Dickens personal approach includes putting the reader in the mind of the condemned man. He asks the reader to, “conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth…” and goes on in great detail to describe the man’s internal struggle during his last hours (9).

It was important that Dickens told about his visit to Newgate in such a personal manner rather than an official one. Reports of the dimensions of the prison leave out the human element. Or rather, such reports allow the reader to forget the humanity of those in prison, and to distance himself from the condemned. Dickens implies that no one wants to really think about the prison, for to do so would be to admit that not only are these condemned men living in close proximity with regular citizens, they are also being put to death in such a proximity. People do not want to think about death, as Dickens notes, “Contact with death even in its least terrible shape, is solemn and appalling. How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the dying-to men in full health and vigor, in the flower of youth or prime of life…” (1).

As was also mentioned in the podcast, Dickens’ mother-daughter pairs raise some of the same issues William Blake’s chimney sweeps did. They bring up the same questions about the value of innocence versus experience. In this case, innocence is excluded as a possibility due to the social rank and poverty of the prisoners and their families. Experience, if the first mother-daughter pair is any indication, leads to one of two extremes: agony or indifference. The mother, having gained worldly experience by committing a crime, is now an extremely sorrowful figure. The daughter, having had a hard life, is wholly uncaring. Dickens’ comment on society seems to be that society, like the daughter, is becoming too worldly and indifferent. The mother speaks earnestly, but the daughter and society are both unsympathetic. They ignore a woman worn both physically and spiritually, “…a yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that had once been black...It is impossible to imagine a more poverty-stricken object, or a creature so borne down in soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution, as the old woman” (3). Both society and the daughter disregard “…that low, stifled tone of voice which tells so forcibly of mental anguish; and every now and then burst into an irrepressible sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound that ears can hear” (3). The daughter is “perfectly unmoved”, “hardened beyond all hope of redemption” (3). The only interest the daughter takes in the prisoner is to briefly inquire after an acquaintance and then “…eagerly catching at the few halfpence her miserable parent had brought her…” (3).

Like the daughter, the Industrial society was more concerned with wealth than maintaining human connections. It is worth noting that the second mother-daughter pair shows the same lack of care. The girl feels nothing for the mother, or the mother for her child, “…neither hope, condolence, regret, nor affection was expressed on either side” (4). These two, who should have had such a close connection, approached each other with “careless indifference” (4). This new era, it seems, is severing the very closest of relations and is certainly, contrary to popular opinion, not a time of progress for all. This second daughter’s very being is a sign of the hardness of the times, “The girl belonged to a class-unhappily but too extensive-the very existence of which, should make men’s hearts bleed” (4). She lacks innocence, “born and bred in neglect and vice” and understands nothing but “hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbroker’s” (4). While the rich grow richer, the poor only become worse off; the poor lose their compassion in a struggle to survive while the rich lose their compassion by distancing themselves from the poor. It seems no one wants to think either about the prisoners or their families, much less help them. The citizens are “…one perpetual stream of life and bustle, utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched creatures…” (1). Some good all this “progress” appears to have done, when people cannot relate to their fellow human beings!

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