News from Nowhere · Chapter
XXI: Going Up the River explained
The Guest wakes to a beautiful sunny morning and dresses in handsome blue clothes, feeling a boyish holiday excitement.
What happens
The Guest wakes to a beautiful sunny morning and dresses in handsome blue clothes, feeling a boyish holiday excitement. He meets Annie and other girls sweeping the hall, then enjoys a dainty breakfast on the terrace with Annie. Dick and Clara join him, both finely dressed for the hay-harvest, and they discuss the joy of working in the hayfield. Annie bids the Guest farewell with a kiss, and he, Dick, and Clara set off up the river in a pretty boat, with Boffin and the weaver waving them off. The Guest reflects on the contrast between the graceful hayfield workers of the new world and the gaunt, listless figures he remembers from the past.
Themes in this chapter
Pleasure in Work
Dick describes the hay-harvest as pleasant work, especially in fine weather, and the women are depicted as graceful and happy in their labor, contrasting with the Guest's memory of mechanical, joyless toil.
Nature and the Environment
The sunny morning, the Thames river, the noble trees, and the beautiful waterside houses create a pastoral setting that enhances the joy of the journey and the hayfield work.
Characters to notice
- Guest
Wakes early, dresses in handsome blue clothes, enjoys breakfast with Annie, and embarks on the river journey with Dick and Clara.
- Annie
Sweeps the hall with other girls, gives the Guest a friendly kiss, serves him breakfast on the terrace, and bids him farewell.
- Dick
Dressed in embroidered white flannel, rows the boat, and speaks enthusiastically about the hay-harvest and the beauty of the women working.
- Clara
Wears a light silk embroidered gown, teases the Guest about his earlier scolding, and joins the river expedition.
- Boffin
Comes to see the party off at the landing stage, now dressed in working clothes and a fantail hat, waving farewell with old-Spanish-like courtesy.
Key passages
“make your description of the picture too fine, or else he will be disappointed when the curtain is drawn. I don’t want him to be disappointed.”
Don't overdescribe the scene, or he'll be let down when he sees it for himself.
Annie warns Dick not to build up the Guest's expectations too high.
“I could not help putting beside his promised picture of the hayfield as it was then the picture of it as I remembered it, and especially the images of the women engaged in the work rose up before me—the row of gaunt figures, lean, flat-breasted, ugly, without a grace of form or face about them; dressed in wretched skimpy print gowns, and hideous flapping sunbonnets, moving their rakes in a listless mechanical way.”
I couldn't help comparing the beautiful hayfield scene Dick described with the one I recalled, where the women were gaunt, poorly dressed, and worked mechanically without any grace.
The Guest contrasts the idyllic present with the grim past of industrial labor.