The despair seen in Denis Diderot’s article Regrets for My Old Dressing Gown is the anguish of a singular old man, but I would argue that he voices the anguish of the Victorian upper class. It is the “Deceitfulness of riches” which drives him to this state and caused him so much pain. After gaining money and buying new, fancy and fine material possessions, Diderot realizes that his wealth does not have the power to satisfy him. He yearns for his old things when he understands that all the expensive new dressing gowns in the world could not make him as content as his old familiar one. I would argue that many upper class Victorian individuals held the same feelings as Diderot but did not have the understanding or ability to verbalize them and that this discontent was a direct cause of suicide (Diderot).
“[People] reached the stage in [life] life when the grimness of the general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes ambition to halt awhile (Gates).” There are many things that created this “human situation,” poverty, illness, brevity of life, scandal etc. Discontent with a person’s situation was a main cause for what Gate’s called “self murder” in the Victorian Era. Upper class women like Florence Nightingale fought with the heartbreaking desire to end her life because her class suggested women should be confined to the home and entertain. For a woman as intelligent as Nightingale, her class standing was to her a prison that invited death. While she did not succumb to this dreadful and tragic end, many people in the upper class did take their lives and I believe it is because they were so overwhelmed with the realization that material possessions could not fulfill their spiritual and emotional needs that their only solution was to leave this world.
Let us, in the twenty-first century, not make this same miserable mistake. Let us not look to riches, wealthy, financial stability and fine things to satisfy us but instead let us look, as Diderot did, to God for our rescue, solace, fulfillment and peace.
–Katie Anthony
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Diderot, Denis. Regrets for my old dressing gown. www.marxist.org. Accessed Sept. 9, 2012.
Gates, Barbara T., Victorian Suicide, mad crimes and sad historys. www.victorianweb.org. Accessed Sept. 9, 2012, last updated: Sept. 25, 2009.
