Walt Whitman and Charles Dickens wrote very different versions of the same story, the story of New York. Whitman, a native New Yorker, wrote with an insider’s mindset to an audience of insiders. Dickens, A native of Great Britain, wrote from an outside perspective to an audience of other British outsiders. Because of this, the tones of these two texts are very different. Walt Whitman had a very positive view of New York. He saw New York as a united city, a great city. In the first paragraph of Song of Myself he writes, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”(33). New York for Whitman represented diversity and equality simultaneously and harmoniously. His view of the city was positive, celebrating the culture and humans, celebrating the culmination of perfection, “There was never any more than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now,” (35).
Dickens, on the other hand, wrote a much more bleak review. Although his review in From American Notes for General Circulation begins with a middling to positive review, “Was there ever such a sunny street as Broadway?” and “Heaven save the ladies, how they dress!” (52), it quickly degenerates into a darker and more scathing attitude of New York. Where Whitman focuses on human advancement, Dickens chooses to write about the slums and a holding prison called The Tomb. The guards of The Tomb are described as having a laissez-faire attitude. When asked about the prisoners’ right to exercise, the guard replies, “Well, they do without it pretty much”(55). The prison is dark, unkempt, and named The Tombs for a very specific reason. Upon questioning the guard about the origin of the name, Dickens receives this reply, “Some suicides happened here, when it was first built. I expect it come about from that.” (57). The source of the prison’s name is not the only thing that horrifies Dickens; he also takes time to write about both the fact that the prisoners’ clothes are kept strewn about the floor because of the lack of hooks, and also about a boy who is being held in the prison, not because he has committed a crime, but because he is being held as a witness against his father. This last bit of information contrasts sharply against the picture of a civilized city painted by Walt Whitman.
But Dickens’ does not stop with the depressing description of The Tombs; he even goes so far as to describe the inhabitants of New York as different types of animals. The working classes become “pigs” who are only concerned with their own well being and recognize each other by sight instead of conversation. Alongside the pigs are the “dogs”, which one is led to believe are the criminals of New York. Wall Street’s portrayal is particularly poignant presently as Dickens’ writes, “Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin” (53). In conclusion, although Dickens and his literary ability were welcomed to New York with pomp and celebration, he did a great disservice to the city by describing only the negative aspects and generally ignoring the positive sides described exhaustively by Whitman.