Unit 6: "Sybil"

Author Bio: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) was a novelist and politician and served as a prime minister in two terms. He was one of the most ardent reformers of working conditions in the factories. He hoped to gain working class support for a group of reforming aristocrats in his Tory party.

Date/Context: A little before this book was written, the industrial revolution in Britain occurred. The economy changed from agricultural to industrial and people started moving from farms to factories, especially women and children. Specifically, Disraeli used information from the subject of the Chartist movement to write his novel Sybil. The Chartist movement was a working class political reformist movement that sought for universal male suffrage and parliamentary reform.

Summary: Disraeli explains how so many people are coming to work in the industries of all walks of life, of different races, nationalities, and genders. Even with all these differences, no one can tell the difference between each person though, not even their employers, unless you looked close as they were covered in dirt and coal, therefore no one notices their suffering.

Key Quotations: 

• “Those worthy gentlemen, too, appear to have been singularly unconscious of the sufferings of the little trappers, which was remarkable, as many of them were in their own employ.”
• “They endure that punishment which philosophical philanthropy has invented for the direst criminals, and which those criminals deem more terrible than the death for which it is substituted.”