Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, The Negro Question

1. What effect is created by the title of Carlyle's "The Nigger Question"? What seems to have been his motive in so shocking the reader?

2. What is the purpose of his use of a frame? What is the narrator's alleged relationship to the material presented? Are there unexpected or unusual aspects to having the speaker of a philanthropic society attack its aims?

3. What is the effect of presenting a speaker whose views are found offensive by some members of his audience? What role does the speaker wish to play?

4. What are some of the speaker's chief anxieties? Were these shared to some degree by other Victorians? Which of his dislikes seem to be especially virulent?

5. What imagery does he use to describe the black inhabitants of the Caribbean? (e. g. pp. 8, 10) What roles and characteristics does he ascribe to persons of color?

6. What assumptions does he make about Caribbean history and economics? Are these accurate?

7. What are some of Carlyle's attitudes on related social issues--the Irish peasantry, reformist movements, the agitation for suffrage, labor unions, the relationship between European and other countries? What seem to him good ideals in social relations?

8. What seem to be his attitudes toward women? What does he think of the plight of impoverished seamstresses?

9. Does the essay achieve closure?

10. What are some features of Carlyle's rhetorical style? How would you characterize the effectiveness of his "argument"?

11. Who is its intended audience? To what attitudes/emotions of his reader does it expect to appeal?

12. It has been suggested that the essay is intentionally offensive. Are there ways in which he might have presented some portion of his ideas more convincingly?

13. How do his statements on work relate to his theory of work in general? To his other works such as Past and Present? Is his doctrine of work consistently applied?

14. What are some ways Mill attempts to refute Carlyle's diatribe? What are his views of reformers? Caribbean history? The situation of black laborers?

15. How does Mill's style contrast with that of Carlyle? His tone and mode of argument?

16. How does Mill's view of the purpose and value of work differ from Carlyle's? What for him is the value of leisure?

17. What does Mill suggest are important achievements of black people? Are such observations made today?

18. What does he believe are the merits and faults of his own century?

19. Do you find Mill's rebuttal convincing? How does "The Negro Question" anticipate the views of On Liberty and The Subjection of Women?