This prayer really draws out the sympathy for Lou because it is such a genuine prayer and in such simplistic language, “ even the little flowers are no more beautiful.” This shows how, also, his way of thinking is very immature, he sees the world as a child. Only the children understand him, and therefore the children are his only followers. To society his childlike characteristics seem strange, and so he is an outcast. His solution is to find sense in the bible. He pours himself into religion. At the end of the story he is ‘taken up’, much like the prophets are in the bible. However the story is left unanswered, and the reader is left unsure as to the real outcome, the police officers “never found him again, living or dead”. This mystery leaves us questioning whether he really did find religion or if in fact he was mad. If he was mad, it was a pity, however if he had religion the conclusion was even sadder as no one listened to him. This is what provokes the great sympathy for Lou I this story.
I feel that almost the same degree of sympathy is felt for Michael in ‘The Poor Relation’s Story’ but somehow Lou’s circumstance seems slightly worse, this is purely because Michael manages to get some kind of revenge in the end. As Michael tells his Christmas story we feel vast sympathy for him. In the double narrative form he cleverly tells his parallel lives. The first is true, the first is his real life. The second is how his life should have been if things had gone well and fairly for him. Michael is using the opportunity to tell how badly the company treated him. We have such sympathy for Michael because he lost all that he had, and all that was coming to him. He fell deep in love with Christiana, and she was to be his wife, however it was suspected she loved him only for his money and when he was disinherited she left for a richer man, who the reader surmises to be John Spatter. This story of uncle Chill’s meanness is emphasised by Dickens portrayal of him and the clever use of the descriptive name. After Christina left Michael he was never the same again. Things also went badly for him in business too. His partner John Spatter “abuses the trust” and says slanderous things about Michael, pushing him out of business and into a poor life. We feel so sorry for him after hearing the unfortunate elements of his life, especially how he was taken advantage of. Now he lives such a low life. In his dream life he lives in a castle rather than lodging in Clapham Road. But Michael has been cast out by all the people he knew and trusted. Also society neglects the poor, it seems to be a human characteristic that Charles Dickens concentrates on, how people seem to profit from other’s misfortune. Because he is poor, he is an outsider, not only to society but also to his own family. We feel sympathy for the life Michael currently leads, and for all the things he lost, however the bitter irony on this tale being told in front of the very people that treated him so wrongly, allows Michael with at least some dignity.
The reader feels a lesser amount of sympathy for the anarchist in ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ simply because his circumstances are less consequential, and the story is more light hearted. An anarchist is somebody who rejects the need for a system of government in society and proposes its abolition. The anarchist in ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ tries to overthrow society’s formal system of government and so behaves in a generally lawless manner in order to create destruction on the human race. As he clutches the tube of what he believes to be cholera he takes on an immature boasting manner, comparing himself to other great anarchists before him. “How brilliantly he had planned it, forged the letter of introduction, and got into the laboratory, and how brilliantly he had seized his opportunity.” He is willing to sacrifice his life, die of cholera, and start an epidemic so that people “should consider him at last”. The irony of the story is only realised at the end, where the bacteriologist reveals that it was in fact only a blur dye. But we are left with an uneasy sense that the story might well have ended in tragedy. In the end of the story all that has happened to him is that he looks foolish and melodramatic, and he has started to turn blue. When he is in the taxi, his imagination runs wild, as he then “stood on the pavement with his arm folded upon his breast”. The only reason to possible feel sympathy, or rather pity for the anarchist is because he makes a fool of himself by his immense over reaction.
The outsider I feel the least sympathy for is Hop Frog. At first Edgar Alan Poe forces sympathy upon us. His physical appearance makes him an outsider but with the description of Hop Frog as “a dwarf and a cripple”, “a triplicate treasure” in the eyes of the king. This mean portrayal of Hop Frog makes us feel sorry for him, as he seems so badly treated. This cruelty is shown at various points, being forced to drink to “absent friends” brought tears to his eyes, and most the shocking abuse was where the king “stuck the girl (Trippetta) and had thrown wine in her face”. This was the turning point in the story. Hop Frog had been pushed beyond the limit, and seeked revenge. At this point we see the nasty side of Hop Frog with his grinding teeth. He almost takes on an animal form of some kind. By the end of the story all sympathy we felt for him has gone. This is not because he has got his revenge, as Michael does, but because his actions are so horrific, and he doesn’t seem in any way remorseful. After the humiliation of the king and his ministers being “tarred and flaxed ” and then being hung from the chandelier chain, Hop Frog sets them alight. “This” Hop Frog exclaims, “is my last jest!” The horrifying image of the eight swinging corpses, a “fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass” is left with us as Hap Frog “clambered leisurely” away.
Here is where you can see clearly why sympathy is not felt for this outsider, because of the gruesome end to this story, and his reaction to it, the author has made it very difficult, morally, for us to feel sympathy for him at all.
As these four stories show, the degree of sympathy felt for the respective outsiders differs in each case. Due to moral issues such as religion, social differences and revenge the sympathy felt for some greatly contradicts the sympathy felt for others.
