Title: Blackpool's Muddle
Rating: G (K)
A/N: This is part of a school assignment where I was asked to pretend I was Stephen Blackpool's advocate... Enjoy and review.
Blackpool's Muddle
Mr. Stephen Blackpool has an unfair and depressed life that holds little meaning, and is—as he is so very fond of calling it—a muddle. Now, you may not see how Mr. Blackpool's life is any more or less unfair than the next factory Hand's, but he has been dealt an extremely hard hand in life that he has no idea what to do with. So is his "muddle."
First, he has a drunken wife who deserts him except to come back sick for him to care for. Is it really fair that he had married such a fair woman that turned so wrong by no fault of his? No, 'tis not. Stephen Blackpool did nothing to welcome this misfortune, but expected as any average man to have a nice wife through all times, good and bad. But she deserted him, pulling a steady life out from under his feet. But now he has come to find that there is no escape from his situation furthermore! He is left unable to marry and be with the woman he loves, being instead tied to a pitiful excuse for a human being!
Beyond that, Mr. Blackpool is now shunned from his society. His fellow workers will have nothing to do with him all because he made a promise that he insists on keeping. Everyone has deserted him and he is left alone. Then, Mr. Bounderby fires him. Now this man has been through torture time and time again and has asked for nothing, but still it keeps getting it again, again and again.
How is that fair?
Mr. Blackpool calls his existence a muddle, for it is muddy and confused. It's also next to nothing in significance and enjoyment. Would you diminish it yet again?