Mid to late 19th century America saw trying times for people all over the country. While legalized slavery oppressed the lower class in the south, the harsh beginnings of the Industrial Revolution enslaved many free men, women, and children in the north. The incarcerating labor placed on the lower class of America was intended for progress and profit for the nation as a whole. The questions that are raised by such works of the time as “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis are, does society sacrifice conscience for the sake of a better tomorrow? The voices of the two authors indicate that indeed conscience was sacrificed and many innocent people were made to suffer in the process.
In “Self-Reliance,” the idea of a conscience is evoked when Emerson speaks to the reader about children and their innate wisdom. He writes about the nature of man and what his ideal state in life should be. It is apparent to Emerson that children are born with a clean slate of a mind, untainted by society. When you don’t have society forming your mind, your inner self is the best conscience, as it inherently knows right from wrong. Children then give “an independent, genuine verdict” (1164) because “their mind being whole, their eye is yet unconquered” (1164). He shows the reader that conscience in man can “grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world” (1165). Emerson wishes that man could “pass again into his neutral, godlike independence” (1165). While in the short story “Life in the Iron Mills,” author Rebecca Harding Davis represents conscience in several different characters. First, in the character of Deborah, she must face her conscience while deciding to pickpocket the character of Mr. Mitchell. Secondly, in the character of Hugh Wolfe, he must deal with his conscience as he decides whether or not to return the stolen money or to use it to better his lot in life as he feels that it is “his right” (2615) to the money. Thirdly, in the characters of the wealthy class, Misters Kirby and Mitchell, and Dr. May. Davis begs the intended audience of the story to question social conscience as the characters let an artistic, inherently intelligent man slip through the cracks of the labor-machine in the lower class. Davis portrays the upper class men as lacking conscience by showing them mistreating the poor in society by condoning their living conditions and labor. She vilifies them by showing us that the lives of the lower class were “lives… like that of their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms, eating rank pork and molasses… with an occasional night in jail, to atone for some drunken excess” (2601). This is no way to treat fellow human beings, it is no way for any person to live the entirety of their life and yet it is the norm set up by society. The character, Hugh Wolfe, is sentenced to 19 years in prison by the courts of society for Deborah’s crime despite his good nature and wanting to return the money. Davis uses this to show the lack of conscience in society as she begs the audience to “be just, -not like man’s law, which seizes on one isolated fact, but like God’s judging angel, whose clear, sad eye saw all the countless cankering days of this man’s life” (2606). This best shows the lack of a conscience from society at the time.
In his work, Emerson tries to affect the reader’s conscience by showing the audience that their own conscience is more than likely tainted by society as they may sometimes keep quiet when their opinion may differ from popular opinion. He puts it as that “the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness” (1164) and warns us against following the status quo because “imitation is suicide” (1164). This direct pleading to the audience begs the reader to be unique and speak their mind; it is vital to differ. As Emerson puts it, “whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” (1165). Davis on the other hand, rather than pleading directly to the audience takes the approach of begging the audience to ask themselves the hard questions so that they might make up their own mind. Of Hugh Wolfe and his plight in the lower class, Davis asks the audience: “was it not his right to live as they, -a pure life, a good, true-hearted life, full of beauty and kind words?” (Davis, 2616). He was a good man who worked hard and only wished to be more than what society had made him. The reader must decide for their own self whether or not society can truly advance when it’s own members cannot.
Davis uses her allegory of theft between the upper and lower classes to demonstrate that all men have their own conscience, it depends on whether or not they listen to it or leave themselves to society’s corrupted agenda. She uses the upper class men who visit the iron mill to show the audience why they do not concern themselves with their own consciences in regards to the lower class. Mr. Kirby says to Mr. Clarke, “‘they’re bad enough, that’s true. A desperate set, I fancy. Eh, Clarke?’” (2607). But “the overseer did not hear him. He was talking of net profits just then” (2607). The men focus on their attention more on their profits then on their people. Davis further shows the audience this dilemma with conversation between Mr. Kirby and Dr. May as they talk about what they think they should do about the plight of the laborers. Mr. Kirby says to Dr. May that “‘I do not think. I wash my hands of all social problems, -slavery, caste, white or black. My duty to my operatives has a narrow limit, -the pay-hour on Saturday night’” (2610). The progress and profit of society cannot be disturbed by its conscience, and so this does great harm to the people of the country. Kirby goes on to say to Dr. May, “‘c’est n’est pas mon affaire. I have no fancy for nursing infant geniuses. I suppose there are some stray gleams of mind and soul among these wretches’” (2610). Dr. May’s reply of, “‘that is true philosophy. Drift with the stream, because you cannot dive deep enough to find bottom’” (2610) shows again the danger of conforming to society’s will as it imprisons those in the lower class. Dr. May later though explains that he himself cannot help the genius he had just discovered because “‘why should one be raised, when myriads are left? –I have not the money, boy,’” (2611). The good Doctor cannot be bothered with dealing with his own conscience as he feels it would somehow hinder his own personal progress in society. Conscience is the Doctor’s first, natural instinct though, as he tries to encourage Wolfe to rise above his rank.
Emerson asks himself the question of where that conscience may come from and finds that “the inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, the essence of virtue, and the essence of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions” (1170). Dr. May might have helped Wolfe to climb the social ladder had his later institutional teachings had not hindered him from doing what he knew was right. Emerson shows that conscience comes from nature innately and so he states about society and its laws that “no law can be sacred to me but that of my nature… I suppose no man can violate his nature” (1165, 1168). Does this then make Wolfe a better man than the upper class who came to visit the iron mill? He states that “to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart… -that is genius” (1163). Davis makes it clear that Wolfe is the better man as he has “a great blind intellect stumbling through wrong, a loving poet’s heart” (2606), and that “the man was by habit only a coarse, vulgar, laborer, familiar with sights and words you would blush to name” (2606). She expresses that society was to blame for his plight. Kirby, or rather society at the time, states that “‘if I had the making of men, these men who do the lowest part of the world’s work should be machines, -nothing more, -hands’” (2610). Society placed Wolfe in his class despite his greater qualities that should have allowed him to excel in life. This leads Wolfe to questions his value and station in life: “‘what am I worth, Deb? Is it my fault that I am no better? My fault? My fault?’” (2613).
Emerson answers Wolfe’s questions when he claims of the society at the time that “our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us” (1175). He demonizes society and its harm on people when he says that “society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members” (1165). He recognizes early on in the Industrial Revolution that the progress society was making may have been hurting people all over at the expense of abandoning their social conscience; he makes claim that “the harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good” (1179). The consequence portrayed by Davis is that of good men being unable to chase the American dream of working their way up the social ladder, but more importantly having their lives and freedoms stripped of them by oppressive labor. She states about the incarcerating labor that “man cannot live by work alone” (2602). Emerson mirrors the same point as he claims that “a man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace” (1164). To him, society has created a vast pool of people plagued by unrest, never to find peace in their labor or lives. Ultimately, Emerson finds that for man, “nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles” (1180).
Davis ends her story in a depressing state as Wolfe dies in his jail cells the night after his sentencing. Deborah serves a three-year sentence and then lives a life of religion with a commune of Quakers to atone for her sins. This tactic is effective as it leaves the reader searching their conscience as they feel it is not right for a good man to have such a disastrous end but that was life for the lower class at the time. The story evokes the reader to reaffirm his or her own conscience and to trust in it. Emerson in turn leaves his audience questioning the motives of society and wonder if it has a conscience as he stresses that we again, trust in our selves and refuse to follow the social norm unless it agrees with our own conscience. In the time that these works were written, social injustices ran rampant and everything to be in a sad state. Texts like “Self-Reliance” and “Life in the Iron Mills” raised the questions that needed to be asked of society at the time, and should still be asked to this day: is society sacrificing it’s conscience for the sake of a better tomorrow? Only the individual can answer the question and so only the individual can bring peace to himself by working towards Emerson’s “triumph of principles” (1180).
Works Cited
Davis, Rebecca Harding. “Life in the Iron Mills.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Ed. Nina Baym. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 5 Vols. 2599-2625.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina
Baym. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 5 Vols. 1163-1180.
