V. The Marriage
Essay 1: Philosophical Analysis of The Marriage in A Rake’s Progress
By Christian Rubino-Chuckas
William Hogarth was an English painter, printer, satirical artist, and social critic in 18th century Britain. While he dabbled with realistic portraiture, his most famous works were comic strip-like series’ of prints that satirized societal corruption in Britain. His upbringing likely had an impact on his satire; his father’s bleak financial outlook during Hogarth’s childhood caused him to be thrown in a debtors’ prison for five years. This resulted in Hogarth’s despisal for corruption and immorality (especially by the rich), as he likely believed his father’s imprisonment occurred because of avaricious creditors. So, Hogarth dedicated much of his life to creating prints, paintings, and cartoons capable of shocking the British public about the corrupt actions of wealthy individuals in their society. A Rake’s Progress addresses the social scandals of the day, which involved wealthy young men who often engaged in immoral acts including prostitution, orgies, gambling, and heavy drinking. This clashed with Hogarth’s Presbyterian upbringing, which emphasized a strong moral standing. Hogarth’s focus on these corrupt dealings by wealthy people inspired him to author the print series A Rake’s Progress, a story about a reckless young man named Tom Rakewell who inherited a large fortune from his deceased father. Tom proceeds to spend his newfound fortune on alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes rather than focusing on moral responsibilities, including his pregnant fiancée (who he pays off to live a life of raucous debauchery). By analyzing Rakewell’s corrupt dealings throughout the print (and in the fifth print especially) it will be shown how his actions are indicative of a decadent society that values vice over ethical standards of conduct.
The underlying themes present throughout A Rake’s Progress are corruption and decadence. Tom consistently uses other people’s earnings to finance his immoral behavior, despite the presence of influences that should have taught him otherwise. In the first print, The Heir, Tom is being measured for new clothes as his servants mourn the death of Tom’s father. Tom’s father, despite massive amounts of wealth, is incredibly stingy. The half-starved cat and the lack of ashes in the fireplace indicate that he is unwilling to spend money on essentials for himself or his family. Clearly, Tom did not subscribe to his father’s frugal ways, choosing to instead use his money for immoral activities. From this print, one can see a corrupted young man leaving his woman in a vulnerable state, all so he can pursue a life of unearned, yet unrestricted vices. The third print depicts Tom engaging in an orgy with multiple prostitutes. In his drunken state, he fails to notice the prostitute stealing his watch. The Roman emperor Nero’s picture hangs in the third print: his reputation as a corrupt womanizer who persecuted Christians would have surely been known by educated Britons. A heavily Christian society, especially one which values traditional familial structure, would have realized the reference to a decadent figure from history. By the fifth print, Tom has run out of money. To pay his debts, he marries a wealthy old woman. Tom’s illegitimate marriage clashes with Hogarth’s moral values (as well as British societal values), as financing a life of excess is more important to him than the people who care about him. This is another example of immoral conduct that is outside the realm of societal tolerance. His corruption and excess continue despite his near-arrest in the previous print (he was bailed out by Sarah Young, whom he’d rejected earlier in the series). Of course, Tom’s nefarious behavior continues after securing a second fortune, and he quickly loses his nest egg through excessive gambling. Finally, Tom’s corruption catches up to him as he is thrown into debtors’ prison. The break from his lavish lifestyle causes him to go mad, resulting in his transfer to Bethlem Hospital, an infamous London insane asylum. His lunacy is put on display for visitors, as the well-dressed women in the background are at the prison to observe. Despite the moral implications of that activity, the message is clear: failure to abide by moral and ethical standards end with suffering and misery.
The fifth print is a perfect representation of the decadence shown by Tom Rakewell throughout the print series. Even in the act of marriage, Tom cannot resist his decadent ways. Obviously, marrying the old woman is a ploy to pay his immense debts and finance his life of excess; this action violates the sanctity of a serious engagement that should be reserved for people truly in love. While the wealthy old woman lusts after the wedding ring in Tom’s hand, Tom looks seductively at the pretty maid to his new wife’s left. Tom has not even put the wedding ring on his new wife’s finger before considering a new mistress, clearly violating the sacred nature of marriage. One can also notice three women fighting in the back of the church, while one holds a child. This represents Tom’s former fiancée and her mother attempting to voice their objections to the illegitimate marriage, but they are held back by wedding guests. Again, Tom’s decadence shows up to haunt him as people from his past come to lambast him for his corruption. Finally, one can notice the decrepit nature of the church. This symbolizes the lack of funding for moral religious institutions as compared to the gobs of money reserved for immoral activities like gambling and prostitution throughout the rest of the print series.
The corruption of 18th century Britain is on full display throughout A Rake’s Progress. According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the classical definition of corruption was a moral decay or perversion of people’s actions that did not fit with accepted societal norms and ethics. The actions of Tom Rakewell fit this definition. Leaving his pregnant fiancée, having sex with many prostitutes, gambling, and marrying a wealthy old woman could all be construed as signs of corruption. The constant examples of corruption in A Rake’s Progress are meant to highlight the decadence of British society in the 1700s. Decadence can be seen as a perceived decay in moral and ethical standards, religious faith, discipline, honor, or skill at governing of the elite of a large society. William Hogarth wanted to shock British society with the decadence present right under their noses, being furthered by the societal leaders they are supposed to trust. British society of the 1700s was very faith-oriented, with various Protestant denominations dominating the religious landscape. The raucous debauchery of British elites clashed directly with the Christian values that were held by much of the British lower classes. The wealthy young men who often engaged in immoral acts including prostitution, orgies, gambling, and heavy drinking were minorities in Britain, yet they represented the pinnacle of British social status. This is what can lead to the development of a decadent society; the higher classes start to take part in immoral activities, and the lower classes accept these actions as normal, leading to societal collapse once immorality has permeated enough of the society.
A Rake’s Progress was created by William Hogarth to make a public statement about the growing threat of decadence and corruption in British high society. The prevalence of gambling, prostitution, drinking, drugs, and other illicit means of entertainment had skyrocketed in the 18th century. Upon noticing this erosion of morality among upper class Britons, Hogarth decided to take action to show their poisonous behavior. In creating A Rake’s Progress and other works, he tried to curb the presence of immoral and unethical behavior before it could lead to societal decadence, and the eventual collapse of British society.
Works Cited
Harland, Sophie. “Hogarth, a Rake’s Progress (Article).” Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/britain-18c/britain-ageof-revolution/a/hogarth-a-rakes-progress.
Miller, Seumas. “Corruption (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.edu, 2018, plato.stanford.edu/entries/corruption/.
Paulson, Ronald. The Modern Moral Subject, 1697-1732. Vol. Volume 1, New Brunswick; London, Rutgers University Press, 1991.
“Corruption - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” Www.rep.routledge.com, www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/corruption/v-1.
Essay 2: Entropy in Plate 5 A Rake’s Progress: The Marriage by William Hogarth
By Lillian Weitz '25
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a British artist from London famous for his political and social commentary through satire. For several years of his life, he lived within the jurisdiction of Fleet prison after his father was imprisoned for debt. These were formative years of his life that you can see reflected in his works. Hogarth was working during the art era known as Rococo which had themes of opulence, happiness, wealth, and excess even despite the hardships many people in England were facing at the time. Hogarth shows you a different lens or perspective on the time and of the subject matter typically explored in Rococo such as wealthy people. His perspective often aims at being more “real” or at least shedding light on the decadence on a moral level. Some of his most widely known pieces were series about “modern moral subjects” where he would show the decline of morality in individuals as a reflection of society at the time. One of these series is A Rakes Progress (1735) which follows Tom Rakewell, the son of a wealthy merchant, in his decadent decline from riches to poverty. I will be focusing on the fifth plate in this series The Marriage where Tom marries an old, wealthy woman to continue financing his immoral lifestyle. This scene is a pivotal moment in Tom’s decadent descent into poverty and madness as this marriage is purely to continue funding his desire motivated, sinful lifestyle since he has already gambled away his inheritance.
The framework I am choosing to use to evaluate this scene is entropy. The idea of entropy revolves around the increasing of chaos and disorder as means to a slow degradation until the subject is gone or morphed into something different entirely. It is a spiral in the sense that it is a progressive negative progression that takes more effort to slow down or stop than it takes for the progression to occur. So, it ends up being an inevitable fate of a subject. Typically, entropy is used as a process to describe the decay of an object, but it can also be used to describe the decay of a culture, or individual for that matter, who has lost control. Entropy is fitting as Hogarth criticizes society for is spiral into accepted, common immorality in both indirect, like the name “Rakewell” referring to the term “rake” which was a womanizer or person with loose morals, and direct ways that we see in scenes of gambling, drinking, prostitution, etc.
I want to focus on the background of this scene as a reflection of the inner state, the entropy, of Tom Rakewell. The imagery used in the background to facilitate the image of Tom’s decline shows physical evidence of entropy or entropic features. The background of my print shows a church falling into dilapidation. The walls are cracked. The paint is peeling. There are no stained-glass windows indicating that the church lacks funds. Typically, when we think of entropy, we picture objects decaying- a physical process. The state of the church is a literal depiction of entropy. I believe this is a purposeful feature of the setting and a metaphor for the decline in morality and increase in decadence going on inside Tom.
In the back left there is a woman holding a baby and two women fighting. The woman holding the baby is Tom’s ex-fiancée, Sarah Young, who he broke up with in the first scene of the series when he got his inheritance following his father’s passing. The women fighting are Sarah’s mother and the pew keeper to gain access to the wedding. This is an explicit illustration of the moral corruption of Tom that goes beyond marrying for money. Sarah was pregnant with Tom’s child when they were engaged and here she stands at his wedding with their child born out of wedlock while Tom glances over at the younger maid attending to the old women he is marrying as they say their vows. The women fighting in the back illustrates the increase in chaos that comes with entropy. Your eye is guided to it as you look from Tom to the old women to her maid then to the fight. This chaos and disorder are a byproduct of the increasing entropy in Tom’s life as he falls deeper and deeper into decadence. However, entropy is a slow process, so we only see the chaos in the background rather than in the foreground. It is also interesting how no one is attempting to stop the fight. People are merely onlooking. Entropy plays out similarly in that it is a process that can only be observed. Entropy cannot be reversed or stopped. Chaos, fighting, violence, disorder in a church, a holy and safe space, during a wedding is wrong and out of place. This gives the scene a deeper level of the feeling of corruption or perversion in a moral sense to demonstrate to the viewer the moral and internal entropy occurring on a more emotional level.
Around the painting there are many inscriptions and symbols further poking fun at Tom’s actions while highlighting his descent. First, on the alter wall there is a tablet showing the Ten Commandments. There is a crack through the IX commandment, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbors’, which is meant to be pointed at the fact that Tom is breaking that commandment as he recites very obviously false vows. The result of physical entropy of the tablet, the crack, is a material manifestation of Tom breaking this commandment even despite the fact that the commandments are printed right in front of him. Second, there is a plaque on the balcony behind the couple getting married that says the church they are in was beautified in 1725 only 10 years prior to when this series was printed and distributed. The church is already falling apart, entropy has already taken hold even in such a short amount of time, which reflects the moral state of the church officiating this secret, fast, and obviously ulteriorly motivated wedding. It in no way lives up to the Christian purpose or standards of what marriage is. Perhaps one could infer that this is also a criticism of the larger social issue of these weddings occurring at a high enough frequency that churches who are readily prepared to officiate them exist and are actively used or needed. Again, this is a physical reflection of the state of moral disorder and dissolution happening in this church, in Tom and the officiants, and in society at large (Soane).
This scene overall through the physical entropy displayed demonstrates the inner entropy of Tom Rakewell driving his decadent descent into immorality. On a grander scale, it is an illustration of the greater morally entropy occurring in society that is so strong, so pervasive that it could even penetrate and instill immorality and disorder in a sacred, pure space such as a church.
Works Cited
Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 120-122
Rococo - Concepts & Styles. The Art Story. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.theartstory.org/movement/rococo/history-and-concepts/
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Rococo. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/art/Rococo
A rake's progress V: The marriage,a rake's progress: The marriage,A rake's progress: 5. the rake marrying an old woman. CollectionsOnline. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2022, from http://collections.soane.org/object-p44
Mussett, S. M. (2022). Entropic philosophy chaos, breakdown, and Creation. Rowman & Littlefield.