DB: Black Beauty Part 1

I find myself glad that the focus of this discussion board is on my reaction to the reading, because more so than any of our previous books, I actually find a reaction in me to Black Beauty. Lo and behold a Victorian novel possessed of not only the trademark devastating emotional lows, but, scarcely to be believed, possessed also of emotional highs! For the first time in our readings, nay for the first time in my experience of Victorian literature, there is actual joy in the story by which to give the inevitable sorrow any worth!

And it does give the sorrow worth. The ideals and principles depicted in Black Beauty are so in league with the ideals and principles we hold today that it is unavoidable that sympathy and compassion develop between ourselves and our narrator. This change in ideals is clearly shown in the statement "Where we saw people who loved their neighbours, and were kind to man and beast, we might know that was God's mark, for 'God is love.' " (Sewell, 52).

This is a new view of the world, a remembrance of the love and joy put forth by the new testament, rather than a constant decline into the ideals of the old, where there is only wrath and punishment, and the supremacy of man in the playground God has bequethed him. This view is shown in God reaching for the image of beautiful man, showing him caring and love, epitomized in Michealangelo's beautiful depiction in the Cistene Chapel.

This view of the world is a celebration of joy and happiness, a newborn delight in the individual's worth and conduct. Sewell's novel shows a delight in and respect for the inborn charity of man that Victorian literature often ignores altogether, a charity of man that I would like to think the last few centuries has cherished and nurtured to the best of its ability. The old views of man as a wretched creature, a sinfull beast, deserving of only misery, and incapable of bettering himself or his world, are dying off, I pray for good. In Black Beauty we see the light great minds of the time were beginning to glimpse, the idea of a unified community of loving individuals, working together to make life not only better, but more joyous.

This ideal of community is shown in Sewell's scathing denunciation of the ideal "Everybody look after himself, and take care of number one." (Sewell, 67). In an age where men began to wonder exactly what good they were capable of, throwing off the old assertion that man was capable of only wretchedness, they quickly came to find that men could do even greater good than any one man. And if men could create great things through kindness to one another, how much greater could their accomplishments be if they showed kindness universally? If they extended goodwill and charitability to all manner of life? This idea was new, unprecedented, and people like Sewell knew it would take time and effort for man to make it a habit to treat all creatures with dignity and kindness. Because of this, she stresses good habits as a positive quality throughout her novel. Good habits in the actions of the grooms created good habits in the actions of their charges, created a better working relationship for everyone in the story. She connects this idea of bad habits to men, even while using horses, with the assertion that "letting [a horse] get into bad habits was just as cruel as spoiling a child, and both had to suffer for it afterwards.' (Sewell 112). To develop bad habits in oneself or one's charges would lead to a loss of the effectiveness of the new principles of kindness and charity that were only just beginning to bloom in the heart of Victorian England.

To go along with this new focus on charity and kindness, in the face of centuries of wretchedness in Western Europe, is a focus in Sewell's writings of throwing off old trappings of style and fashion, especially those that go against common sense and cause harm, such as the oft-maligned bearing reins of Black Beauty, as shown on the right. Being a woman living in her time, Sewell probably had close intimate knowledge of inane fashions and ideals causing her a great deal of bodily and mental harm, and used the story of her gorgeous and well-mannered hero to show how very much harm to the psyche such idiotic social requirements could cause.

Sewell uses animals to get across her novel ideas of kindness and community in an understandable fashion, without looking like she's trying to tell humans how to act in a direct manner, something difficult for an author to do, and flat out impossible for a woman in Victorian England to accomplish. Much like in Jude, animals are used to create an opportunity for the characters to show mercy and compassion for others, and to show it as a beautiful and positive quality to be nurtured and developed.