Читать книгу The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell - Страница 8

Despite, or perhaps because of its enormous popularity The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists has not received the critical attention it deserves. Its status as art has been compromised by its espousal of socialism. Such partisan writing goes against the tradition of the English novel which ‘first explore[s] to find “the true facts of this world” and then face[s] them to enable the reader to draw the necessary conclusions.’⁶ Angus Wilson, on the other hand, has argued that, since Jane Austen, ‘the English novel has shied away from essentials, reducing good and evil to mere right and wrong.’⁷ Seen in this light the passionate commitment of Tressell’s book represents a return to the fundamental duty of novel writing: to elaborate and advocate a notion of the good.

The literary credentials of Tressell’s novel are manifold, and are apparent in its imaginative force, its unity and its relation to tradition. Imaginative force refers to the quality of writing; the vividness of character, the sharply realised situations and the intensity of the vision. All these combine to produce a powerful effect on the reader. As a review in 1914 enthuses, ‘There is no one, no one at all, who will be, after reading it, quite the same as he was before.’⁸ Within the novel, imagination is also a stimulus to change. It is Owen’s ability to imagine his own son, Frankie, in the position of the young apprentice, Bert, toiling in the cold, poisonous workshop (p. 562) that enables him to demand that Rushton give the boy a fire. More generally, imagination is also the ability to envisage a different order of society, something of which the philanthropists are consistently incapable. ‘“That’s the worst of your arguments” says Crass to Owen, ‘[y]ou can’t never get very far without supposing some bloody ridiclus thing or other. Never mind about supposing things wot ain’t true; let’s ’ave facts and common sense’” (p. 29). This is a singularly ironic remark since, as the novel shows quite plainly, it is Crass who is ignorant of the facts and devoid of common sense. It is this failure of the philanthropists to understand the society they live in that prevents them from imagining a better one. The society of the imagination is one built on relationships not barriers. It is therefore inclusive and, in this way, the imaginative vision of the novel transcends the limitations of its class based analysis.

One of the reasons why the novel’s imaginative vision is so compelling lies in its fundamental unity, especially of imagery. This quality only became apparent when the full text was published in 1955. The main image in the book is that of a house, which represents both capitalist and socialist society. In repairing and decorating the house known as the ‘Cave’ the philanthropists are seen to be perpetuating the system that oppresses them. Barrington also uses the image of a house to explain the co-operative nature of socialism. ‘The men who put the slates on’, he notes, ‘are just as indispensable as the men who lay the foundations’ (p. 492). The use of the same image for both socialism and capitalism suggests that there is an affinity between the two systems and this complicates other parts of the novel where they are shown to exist in complete opposition to one another.

Capitalism itself is described as the ‘Battle of Life’ (p. 204). There are two main images associated with this battle; crime and evolution, the former being the most obvious. Throughout the novel the philanthropists are ironically referred to as criminals, ironically because it is not they who are shown to commit any illegal acts but rather Rushton, Didlum and Sweater who ‘robbed everybody’ (p.405). That, of course, is why they are called ‘the brigands’. The philanthropists are likened to criminals because their work is equivalent to being sentenced to ‘thirty years’ hard labour’ (p. 130). They are under constant surveillance ‘as if says Philpot to Harlow, ‘we was a couple of bloody convicts’ (p. 157). This remark recalls the design of Victorian prisons whereby inmates, confined to separate cells, were kept under permanent observation by officers stationed on a tower, the panoptican, in the middle of the building.

The system means that ‘[o]ne must either trample on others or be trampled upon oneself (p.204). This is why Tressell refers to it as the ‘Battle of Life’. He claims that this is a Christian description (ibid.) but the same phrase is also deployed by Darwin who talked about the ‘great and complex battle of life.’⁹ Tressell’s use of Darwinian ideas and idioms, while it is another instance of unity in the novel, nevertheless complicates its vision of socialism. Owen, for example, believes that the existing order is ‘bound to fall to pieces because of its own rottenness’ (p.369). That rottenness lies in the way everybody has to compete with everybody else but it is precisely this struggle, according to Darwin, which ensures stability and balance; in short the continuation of the present system. A further point is that while socialism is regarded as ‘inevitable’ (p. 545), the culmination of the historical process, evolution is ongoing and without any predetermined end. Finally, evolution proposes that nothing could have happened any differently to the way it did, and this view finds expression in the novel through the frequent repetition of the word ‘compel’. The meaning of this term, however, is severely at odds with the educational aim of the book which is to teach people that things could be ordered otherwise. In short, the socialism of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is skewed by its evolutionary imagery and diction.

The novel also shows great unity of plot. Incidents are anticipated and situations paralleled. Ruth’s baby calls out ‘Dad! Dad! Dad!’ (p.181) to Slyme, an incident which looks ahead to her giving birth to his child. Similarly, the accidents that Harlow and Easton narrowly avoid while up a ladder (pp.400-1) prefigure Philpot’s death in Chapter 46. An example of situations paralleling one another would be the respective meetings of the philanthropists and the brigands. The former gather to organise their annual ‘Beano’ (Chapter 41) while the latter manipulate a council meeting for their own ends (Chapter 39). The philanthropists are shown to have an exaggerated respect for procedure while the brigands have a cynical disregard of it. The purpose of juxtaposing these scenes in the novel is to underline the point that the philanthropists, in contrast to the brigands, are incapable of taking charge of their own destiny. There is also the further suggestion that democracy is a bankrupt system since its apparatus appears as either farcical or corrupt; a suggestion which reinforces the latent revolutionary socialism of the novel.

The unity of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists can be read in three ways. First, as a metaphor for the socialist society of the future where everything is connected and interdependent. Second, the intricate architecture of the work represents the values of craftsmanship against the ‘scamping’ that the men are forced to practice by their employers. The third way of reading the unity of the novel is altogether less positive. This way perceives the tightly interlocking structure as an analogy for the capitalist system itself. The parallels and repetitions are symptomatic of the way capitalism seems able to reproduce itself, and this problematises Tressell’s repeated claim that the existing state of things can be changed.