On Teaching Trollope in the 'Seventies

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• On Teaching Trollope in the ‘Seventies
• Charles Moran (bio)

In our quest for “relevant” literature, Trollope’s fiction is almost certain to be overlooked—considered amusing but a trifle tedious, perhaps good escape fiction but not, certainly, important, not significant. So it was with some trepidation that I assigned The Warden to my students in the spring of ‘71. I need not have worried. Trollope took care of himself nicely. Thinking of my students’ deep response to the novel, and my own doubts about teaching Trollope at all, it becomes clear to me that we stand to lose much by somewhat timidly assuming that Consciousness III, or even Consciousness II, will not receive delight—and instruction—from this “lesser novelist,” as David Cecil has called him. Trollope has these lessons to teach us: that men are individuals, not types; that motives for action are mixed and difficult to perceive; and that the consequences of action are complex and difficult to predict. In a time when we are bombarded by stereotypes from all sides, when we assign simple motives to “radicals” and “pigs,” and when we assume that Yankee ingenuity will discover easy solutions to complicated problems, we must read Trollope. Not only does he say what badly needs saying; he says it in a way that can make us listen. Our students will read Trollope, if we let them. [End Page 76]

The Warden presents us with three trendy figures: the idealistic reformer, the moss-backed conservative, and the man of conscience caught between the extremes of left and right. The value of the novel is not the nature of its subject, however, but the fullness with which the subject is presented. Trollope’s characters are not types but complicated individuals, amalgams of good and bad. John Bold, the reformer, is sincere, energetic, brave, eager, amusing, enterprising, and of good character. He is also impulsive and self-deceived. His motives for demanding ‘justice’ for the bedesmen are mixed: he wants to improve the lot of Barchester’s poor, and he wants to get his name into the papers. Trollope adds further complications: Bold is living upon inherited wealth, and it becomes obvious that his income, as well as Mr. Harding’s, should be redistributed. Further, Bold’s independent income has left him without a career and with a great deal of free time. It is part of the truth that John Bold, a man of energy and enterprise, attacks the administration of Hiram’s Hospital because he has nothing better to do.

Archdeacon Grantly, Bold’s antagonist, is also difficult to judge: he is a selfish, materialistic man who lives to increase the power of the established church. And yet, Trollope tells us, he is the inevitable product of his training and environment. And he is “a gentleman of conscience; he spends money liberally and does the work he has to do with the best of his ability; he improves the tone of society of those among whom he lives . . . . He is generous to the poor and hospitable to the rich; in matters of religion, he is sincere and yet no Pharisee; he is earnest and yet no fanatic. On the whole, the archdeacon of Barchester is a man doing more good than harm—a man to be furthered and supported, though perhaps also to be controlled.” Trollope’s antitheses tell us that the archdeacon is both good and bad, a man neither wholly to be admired nor wholly despised.

Trollope’s protagonist, Mr. Harding, is still more complex. He is a gentle, self-effacing man who is driven by his conscience to resign the office of warden and the large income that goes with it. He is Trollope’s conscientious objector, a man who takes a stand and accepts the consequences. But—and my students were quick to discover this—Harding has been living on this unearned 800 pounds/annum for the past ten years. Why the sudden change? Part of the answer is that Harding just had not thought about his situation before; and part of the answer is that he has been made uncomfortable by a reform-minded press and knows he can, by resigning his position...