Charles Dickens - A visit to Newgate

Dickens visits a prison in this publication dated in 1836. His father had a stint in a prison for debt and this hits close to home for him. As he visits the prison he sees the downside of industrialism, the downside of technology. Dickens moves us through the prison, from the grounds where they have "limited" excersie, unless on death row, then they are confined to their quarters. Here he introduces us to one example, an old decrepid woman, who is seeminlgy going insane as it is read, "The old woman was talking in 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." This gives the reader an image of a woman, much like your own mother or grandmother who has been confined so long in this dreary place that she has gone mentally insane, was she like this before she got here? or did it happen while confined?

A chilling imagery is seen in this quote and passage describing a girl whose mother had commited a crime and she was punished for being guilty by association , "The girl belonged to a class - unhappily but too extensive - the very existence of which, should make men's hearts bleed. Barely past her childhood, it required but a glance to discover that she was one of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is: who have never been taught to love and court a parent's smile, or to dread a parent's frown." She was born in the prison and maybe ended up there herself, but was given no chance for survival, as it is said in the quote, she had no childhood, not taught to "love and court a parents smile, or to dread a parent's frown." This is the lost generation of England, not given a chance to make it out of their stereotype.

A longer passage of a man on deathrow hearing his own prayer vigil,

"Immediately below the reading-desk, on the floor of the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous object in its little area, is THE CONDEMNED PEW; a huge black pen, in which the wretched people, who are singled out for death, are placed on the Sunday preceding their execution, in sight of all their fellow-prisoners, from many of whom they may have been separated but a week before, to hear prayers for their own souls, to join in the responses of their own burial service, and to listen to an address, warning their recent companions to take example by their fate, and urging themselves, while there is yet time - nearly four-and-twenty hours - to 'turn, and flee from the wrath to come!' Imagine what have been the feelings of the men whom that fearful pew has enclosed, and of whom, between the gallows and the knife, no mortal remnant may now remain! Think of the hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the wild despair, far exceeding in anguish the felon's death itself, by which they have heard the certainty of their speedy transmission to another world, with all their crimes upon their heads, rung into their ears by the officiating clergyman!"

This man has to hear his peers and clergy of the prison pray for his soul and he has no "mortal" life left, he will die in 24 hours and they are already acting as if he dead, that is probably where the term, dead man walking came from, he was still alive, but no hope for survival.

The end of the poem tells of a dream that a death row inmate has, where he has fled the prison and makes a new life for himself, but as he awakes, he realizes that that was only a dream and not real at all, he will still die in 2 hours.

This was a hard one to read. Much different than the romantic poems of the Romantics, where nature and imagery blended together so well. Nothing so real came from them, nothing so chilling and dark. But I can appreciate this type of writing so much more, it has meaning and not just an abstract meaning, but something that is going on in the real world, maybe even right now. A man's feelings of utter hopelessness.