Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a strong advocate of social reform. Since he had struggled with poverty, poor health, and insomnia for most of his life, I feel like his opinion truly matters. I think anyone who has lived on the oppressed side has a right to stand up for what he or she believes in. It is very obvious to me that Carlyle is very passionate while writing and it comes through in his stories. This made reading them a lot more interesting and I truly started to feel badly for the poor of that time period.

When he wrote “Midas”, he seemed to be fighting for the poor and describing the harsh conditions that some of the people had to live in. They were not receiving any help from any of the higher class people or the government. It was not until I read “The Irish Widow” that I truly felt for the people of this time. This poor widow went to charitable establishment after charitable establishment with her three children looking for help but none was given to her. In the end she came down with typhus fever and infected seventeen others who all died. I think Carlyle was trying to prove that all humans are linked in some kind of brotherhood or sisterhood no matter their social class in life. I think he was saying his true feelings through the voice of the physician, “Would it not have been economy to help this poor widow?” He was trying to show the people that something like karma will always come back to them when they leave people of their own country to die. Since they all refused to help her, she proved her sisterhood with them and they went down with her. Carlyle says that the problem with the government is that the government for the poor is run by the rich people, and they believe that it is “impossible” to relate to the poor. It is proven that everyone is related, and because of their selfishness, they are dead.

The other excerpt that really stuck out to me was “Know Thy Work”. I think that this came from Carlyle’s personal feelings because he, too, had a journey to discover the kind of work that he wanted to do. He believes that work is a very noble thing and the working man is filled with hope. If someone is not working in a job that they are passionate about or enjoy doing, then they will be “tormented”. When I read the line “the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work” I felt like this is a true statement that many people today can relate to. Most people that are unemployed today lose their feeling of self worth because it is natural for every person to want to feel some sense of accomplishment. Carlyle also believes that each person is destined to do a certain type of job, and when they do not fulfill this destiny they will not have any sort of accomplishment in life. I liked his example of this using the potter and the wheel. If this potter did not have this wheel, he would be forced to do something else like become a baker but he will never be good at it. This excerpt ends with a very powerful line that Carlyle and everyone else can relate to, “Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone.” The only way to get out of a job that person does not love is by actually getting up and leaving. I think Carlyle felt this way because he had originally gone to the ministry to become a minister; however, he started to feel doubt about religion and he just quite. He then tried to be a school teacher, but he did not love this so he also quite that. If Carlyle did not feel like it was important to follow your destiny and to keep trying until you are on the right path, then he would not have ever become a writer and this would have been a loss to the world. Carlyle became a role model for all of the Victorian writers and he is still a role model today.