Monograf Journal Edebiyat ve İktidar (2014 / 1) | Page 16

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16 • Anthony P. Pennino
the same societal ills that the Chartists were attempting to alter. Ian Haywood explains those societal ills: “For the majority of the population, the 1830’s and 1840’s must have felt like
a downward spiral into poverty, disease, misery, and alienation. Much of the suffering was attributed to the laissez-faire
and repressive policies of a government which preached individual freedoms while imposing or supporting vicious new
social and economic controls on the mass of the population”
(1). The more politically engaged of the working class felt
as if they were caught between two equally corrupt and vile
forces: the old of the aristocracy represented by the Tory Party
and the new of the bourgeoisie represented by the Whig Party.

Chartists published many of their own newspapers and
also took to the streets to protest the social status quo in processions, parades, marches, and assemblies (some of which were
decried in the establishment press as “riots”). Chartist action
should capture our attention not in the least because it served
as the prototype for future industrial action, or as John