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Chapter 35
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
One morning as Jerry is hitching Black Beauty to the cab, a Mr. Briggs enters the yard and asks if he could arrange for Jerry to begin driving Mrs. Briggs to church on Sundays. Jerry informs Mr. Briggs that he only has a six days’ license and can’t legally work on Sundays. Mr. Briggs says it’d be easy to update the license, and he’d make the extra cost worth Jerry’s while. Jerry explains to Mr. Briggs why he won’t do it: he once had a seven days’ license and it was terrible for his health, and he prefers to attend church himself and see his family on Sundays. Besides, he says, God made a day of rest on purpose and surely knew it would benefit all people and animals. Mr. Briggs walks away, annoyed.
Jerry has several reasons for not working on Sundays: he’s a religious man, for one, but he also recognizes that having a day to rest and recharge is essential if he wants to stay healthy and happy. He also tells Mr. Briggs that it’s not just people who benefit from a day off; the cab horses also need time to rest up. This is another way that the novel illustrates its vision of a dignified life. It’s one where people and animals get the rest they need—but it’s also one where people have enough money to tell the Mr. Briggses of the world that they won’t work an extra day for a bit more money.
Themes
Jerry calls Polly out of the house and tells her about Mr. Briggs’s proposal. He says the Briggses have been wonderful customers and asks what they should do. Polly says she wouldn’t have Jerry work Sundays for a sovereign extra a week—money can be tight now, but she doesn’t want to go back to working Sundays. Jerry says he told Mr. Briggs as much. For the next three weeks, Mrs. Briggs doesn’t hire Jerry, which makes work much more difficult.
When Polly echoes exactly what Jerry said without having heard Jerry and Mr. Briggs’s conversation, it highlights how close and aligned Polly and Jerry are in their beliefs. It’s more important to them to be principled and look out for their health and wellbeing than it is to earn a bit more money—though again, this shows that the family has some amount of privilege.
Themes
The men at the cab stand say Jerry was a fool to turn down Mr. Briggs, but several take his side. One driver says God and England give men and animals the right to a day of rest—and they should take those days. Another driver, who isn’t religious, says he’ll make money when he can, since religious folks seem just as terrible as everyone else. Jerry argues that people who do bad things aren’t religious, no matter how much they attend church. The argument continues: one man says if religion was any good, people wouldn’t have to work on Sundays—and drivers only work Sundays because of the churchgoers. Jerry points out that if the Sunday drivers went on strike, they’d soon have the day off. The churchgoers can either go to a closer church or walk.
During the Victorian Era, the “Act for Preventing Abuses and Profanations on the Lord’s Day, Called Sunday” forbade many types of paid work and even leisure activities on Sundays—but clearly not cab work. This starts to illustrate how laws like this might have good intentions (to give everyone a day to rest and attend religious services, if they’re so inclined). However, in practice, they benefit wealthy religious folks most of all, the ones who can afford to take a cab to church every week. Jerry expresses subtle pro-labor sentiments when he suggests the Sunday drivers strike for their day off. He also echoes what John Manly said earlier in the novel about religious folks needing to act virtuous and put others’ wellbeing above their own desires, if they want to consider themselves properly religious.
Themes
