Living amid the same perpetual whirl
Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end—
Oppression, under which even the highest minds
Must labour, whence the strongest are not free
(Wordsworth, "The Prelude," “Book the Seventh,” lines 725-730)
The lines above
are taken from Book Seven of William Wordsworth’s "The Prelude." As I’ve been working on a research project that explores the relationship between literature, mental illness,
and stigma, I’ve been visiting and revisiting this passage, and
considering the kind of “oppression” it seems concerned with. But
before directly touching upon this “oppression,” it is necessary
to first address the oppressed, the “trivial objects” in the
above passage. In
this book of "The Prelude," the speaker recounts a trip he made to London. During this trip, he
encountered these “trivial objects” at a freak show in the middle
of the city. He sees
...buffoons against buffoons,/ Grimacing, writhing screaming; him who grinds/ The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,/ Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum...Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys...All movables of wonder from all parts/ are here, albinos, painted Indians, dwarf...the stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,/ Giants, ventriloquists, the invisible girl,/ The bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes...the marvelous craft/ of modern Merlins...far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of Nature…
(lines 668-715)
There’s a kind of visual crescendo that occurs in these lines, an overwhelming parade of distinct images. As the passage progresses, however, these sharp images begin to blend into one another—as a reader, I tend to get rather lost in the somewhat uneven flow of these lines. And this uneven flow contributes to the density of this passage.
This passage, therefore, seems to enact the kind of “oppression” (line 729) the speaker describes in the following stanza — the above passage is itself a “perpetual whirl,” a slew of individuals herded and “melted…into one identity” by their differences.
I argue, therefore, that the “oppression” the speaker witnesses in Book Seven is an effect of stigma, which I will define here as a mentality and set of social actions that turn differences into definitions, parts into wholes. This transforms a difference from a distinction to a limitation, “melting” and “reducing” individuals to “trivial objects” and, ultimately, “one identity” (lines 703-704).
This brings to mind, for me, the stigma against mental illness and how the language we use to identify and describe the mentally ill can turn differences into imposed identities.
