Student Question
Discuss dominance, admiration, justice, scientific advancement, hope, and hopelessness in "The Atlantic Cable."
Quick answer:
John Rollin Ridge's poem "The Atlantic Cable" celebrates the laying of the first telegraph cable across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in 1854–1858, and Ridge writes with intense admiration of the men who have dominated nature, bringing the American and European continents together through science and technology. He expresses hope that this achievement will bind humanity together and create a more peaceful world.
John Rollin Ridge's poem "The Atlantic Cable" is a paean of praise to the men who laid the first telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean in 1854–1858 and to the progress pf science and technology more generally. It is in rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter, the usual form for a heroic or epic subject, and exudes the characteristic confidence of the mid-nineteenth century in scientific progress.
The heroic feat of laying the cable is described with exclamatory admiration and is preceded with an account of humanity exerting its dominance over nature in the field of communications. Ridge gives an account of the development of transport and communication, including horses, boats, ships, and steam engines. He then asserts that it was American heroes such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Morse, and Cyrus West Field who made possible this particular crowning glory of communications, the Atlantic cable:
America! to thee belongs the...
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praise
Of this great crowning deed of modern days.
’T was Franklin called the wonder from on high;
’T was Morse who bade it on man’s errands fly—
’T was he foretold its pathway ’neath the sea:
A daring Field fulfilled the prophecy!
The poem ends on a hopeful note, which accords with its scientific triumphalism, asserting that human progress has remedied and will continue to remedy the defects of nature. Ridge has already pointed out that nature split the continents apart, but human ingenuity has now brought them together again. He concludes by hoping that this unity between America and Europe may promote peace, describing the cable as a chain which will bind people together:
And man be bound to man by that strong chain,
Which, linking land to land, and main to main,
Shall vibrate to the voice of Peace, and be
A throbbing heartstring of Humanity!
The tone of Ridge's poem, therefore, is profoundly hopeful, a narrative of apparently insurmountable obstacles overcome. The poet expresses admiration for the men who laid the cable, as well as the scientists and engineers in generations before them who made it possible. Humanity's dominance over nature and adversity through scientific advancement are major themes, and the poet looks forward to a future of ever-increasing peace, justice, and human brotherhood.
How are dominance, admiration, justice, and hope depicted in "The Atlantic Cable"?
In John Rollin Ridge's "The Atlantic Cable," we see how you’d find admiration coupled with dominance, scientific advancement linked to justice, and a bit of hopefulness mixed with hopelessness.
First, let's find an example of admiration and dominance. Perhaps it goes without saying, but what seems to earn Ridge's admiration is dominance. Yes, he seems to really admire ships, which he hails as "brave and free." Yet if the ships didn't dominate the sea, if they didn't "wrestle with the ocean" and "sweep the wild waves foaming from its path," we doubt Ridge would admire them as much as he does (if at all).
As for scientific advancement, one of the outcomes that Ridge seems to posit is that this technological progress (the new cable, the ships, and so on) will bring countries and people together in "knitted unity." The new harmony will dismiss the injustice of war, and in its place will be "the voice of peace."
The belief in a war-free world in which "the sword be sheathed to rust" also links to Ridge's hopes. Again, we could argue that Ridge mainly hopes that all of these developments will bring people together. They’ll make people realize they're "bound" to one another. Such familiarity could hopefully prevent future wars.
As for hopelessness, we wonder if Ridge has some second thoughts bubbling up under all of his admiration of technological feats. There's something sinister and tyrannical in how he describes human progress and its takeover of nature. He says that "beasts were tamed to drag the rolling car." Then he talks about steam and its "black-plumed warriors." These two images suggest war and slavery. Perhaps the hopelessness is that there will be more conflict, just not the kind of conflict that occurred previously.