THINKING/WRITING GUIDE - Commentary 2

CST 1010 - ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Write a short essay (300 words) exploring how each of the following statements applies to what you saw of 19th century British society in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Your essay could examine how the characters decisions demonstrate principles stated in the excerpts, how the relationships between the characters are produced by attitudes about social class that justify exploitation of the poor to benefit the rich, or how the film demonstrates emerging questions about social class and privilege.

Marx and Engels statement is more obviously related to the questions raised in your viewing guide. Darwin's is revealing about 19th century biases that are part of the doctrines of Social Darwinism, the view that Darwin himself supported about the evolution of social institutions even though he rejected Marx's views about the evolution of society from feudalism through capitalism to socialism.

Visit one of the following web sites and use it to help you write this commentary. Explain what the site helped you to understand.

In Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels make the following statement:

The bourgeoisie (capitalist society) cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. .... Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbances of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeoisie epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

In The Descent of Man Darwin makes the following statement:

The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is descended from some lowly organized form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many. But there can hardly be a doubt that we descend from barbarians. The astonishment which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed into my mind -- such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed with excitement, and their expression was wild, startled and distrustful. They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals, lived on what they could catch; they had no government and were merciless to everyone not of their own small tribe. He who has seen such a savage in his native land will not feel much shame, if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs -- as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.