The Treatment of Children and Infant Mortality by Victorian Authors like Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hardy - Term Paper Example

Examine the treatment of children and infant mortality from Victorian with special reference to Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies and Thomas Hardy’s poem “To an unborn pauper child”. The Victorian era glorified the beauty and naivety of children. Writers of this period often shared a similar viewpoint like the Romantics. They have represented childhood as a period, which can be easily shaped morally in a moral and spiritual way. The books on child rearing of this era attempted to educate and grow the children into productive adults compatible with the age. For instance, Lewis Carroll, the well-known author of Alice in Wonderland parodies the poem of Bates, “Speak Gently” which advises the parents and other elders to speak softly to the children and treat them well, for they already had enough to fear and were under some “anxious care” (Bates, 1853, p.15). In fact this period is also a time when infant mortality was high and the threat of mortality facing infants was 30 times worse compared to what it is today (Garrett, 2006, p.253). Carroll captures this nature of parenting explicitly through fairy tale world known as Wonderland. In the fiction, the characters of authority are shown to be funny and rather absurd at times. The paper undertakes the treatment of children and infant mortality by Victorian authors like Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hardy. Carroll’s work is still published as a children’s classic collection and loved by young and adults alike. Lear, a rival of Carroll also published his limericks, which criticizes the social code of behavior in the Victorian society. Like Carroll, Lear also puts forth certain inevitable violent ends of the characters. The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland keeps on reminding the reader that it will be prone to losing its head if he is late to arrive at the Duchess’. (Charney, 2005, p.284) This also reveals the inevitability of social codes and none of the writers could escape that. The Duchess symbolize a typical strict parent of the Victorian age as she tosses her baby pig up into the air and sings the following lullaby to her son, ending every line with a rough shake to the baby: “Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases” (Carroll, n.d., p.44). This is also a parody to the poem of Bates “Speak Gently”. The story also shows the coming of age of the child Alice, as she tends to forget her nursery poems and finds the characters conversing in a language unknown to her. This introduces her to a whole new world when she resides at the crossing stage from childhood to adolescence. Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies is a fairy tale, which condemns child labor though the work has been popularized in children’s literature of England and has been looked upon from a viewpoint of illustrating Christian redemption. Children comprise da large section of the labor class in England owing to the crises and the lack of education for all. The aristocracy rules the middle class and poor who suffered the stigma of having to work hard for living. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist gives a clear picture of the rough conditions at work for a poor labor child (Pakditawan, 2007). The chimney sweep Tom is the child protagonist who gets chased out of a rich girl’s house and dies in a river where he falls. After death he regains a new life and after taking his moral lessons he was allowed to be a part of the team of other children. The story initially shows the importance of cleanliness; at times physical cleanliness symbolizes moral cleanliness (especially when the Irishwoman advises Mr. Grimes and Tom about being foul and clean). It also brings out the difference in fate between a child worker and one who gets a proper upbringing. Tom finds the little girl to be so clean and beautiful and wonders if he would look the same if he got the same care. He even cries in frustration when he sees his ugly and dirty reflection in the mirror. The importance of knowing prayers in a proper society has also been highlighted and Tom who never had any chance of knowing prayers or being educated finally receives his moral lessons after death, which grant shim a new life where he is accepted by all. Social acceptance comes from proper code of behavior, which involves praying and education. After being reborn as a water-baby the teachers who imparted moral lessons were mostly married women who signifies the role of mother in childcare. During the Victorian age, the children were surer about their mothers than their fathers. Fathers received criticisms either for being too tender (and hence unable to protect the children) or being a failure in life (Frost, 2009, p.17). The song sung by the river is also quite symbolic in outlining the story of life and stages of development that a child passes and also pointing out the aspects of being rich – “Darker and darker the farther I go,/Baser and baser the richer I grow” (Kingsley, 1999). Childhood, on the other hand is cool and clear owing to the innocence of the child. Cleanliness and washing is to some extent compared with the innocence of childhood. Tom who has already seen too much of life compared to the girl of his age (in a health environment of upbringing) is therefore unwashed and unclean. He also represents a Victorian child who received little attention from parents owing to large families. During this time, the siblings ended up taking care of each other than the times they were sick. During these times the children received constant attention from the parents (Frost, 2009, p.18). The poem ‘To an Unborn Pauper Child’ by Tomas Hardy (1940-1928) talks of an unborn baby who will face poverty soon after birth. He advises the baby not to be born therefore and stay hidden in the mother’s womb. He suggests the baby to “breathe not”, “sleep the long sleep” and to “cease silently”. The spontaneous childhood comprising of joy and happiness soon turns into fear with time, which gradually destroys the positive feelings of hopes, faiths, enthusiasms and urges the child to hear people sigh– “And laughters fail, and greetings die/ Hopes dwindle; yea, /Faiths waste away/ Affections and enthusiasms numb/Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come” (Hardy, n.d.). In a way this poem justifies mortality of infants. The poet says that despite his warnings life’s plan and the child’s fate cannot be altered and therefore all he could do is to pray that the unborn child finds “health, love, friends, scope” after seeing the earthly light. In conclusion one may say the Victorian children were more prone to the adverse lifestyles and health and hygiene status around. Parenting had a touch of autonomy granted at a very young stage especially in low-income large families where parents had little time to pay attention to their children. Infant mortality rate was high but this has been projected as a boon to the unborn soul by Hardy who tries to protect the unborn child from the impending misfortunes and struggles of the real world by asking him not to born. Finding it impossible to escape the harsh realities a child could actually grow up in his or her dreams like little Alice of Wonderland who enjoys her visit to the Wonderland apart from learning the lessons of life which will help her mature and age gracefully. All the writers uses fairytale characters and imaginary events to highlight realistic issues because it would not be possible to criticize the society openly and directly without getting strong negative reactions from potential readers. The importance of moral lessons has been highlighted almost everywhere and similar to the Caterpillar in case of Alice there is always a wise soul who imparts the moral lessons to the children in order to help them become the proper Victorian adults. References 1. Hardy, T (n.d.), To an Unborn Pauper Child, poem 1032, available at: http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1032.html (Accessed on March 10, 2011) 2. Frost, G.S. (2009), Victorian Childhoods, ABC-CLIO 3. Charney, M. (2009), Comedy, Greenwood Publishing Group 4. Kingsley, C. (1999), The Water Babies, Gutenberg Ebook, available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wtrbs10h.htm (Accessed on March 10, 2011) 5. Carroll, L. (n.d.) Alice in Wonderland, Forgotten Books 6. Bates, D. (1853), Poems, Lindsay and Blackiston. 7. Garret, E. (2006), Infant Mortality, Ashgate Publishing 8. Pakditawan, S. (2007), Childhood in Victorian England and Charles Dickens’ Novel “Oliver Twist”. GRIN Verlag. Read More