Analysis of “Introduction to The Defendant”

by G.K. Chesterton

Sydney Kimmel

The Defendant, a book of essays written by English author, Gilbert Keith

Chesterton, is a collection of alternative perspectives on things generally not liked by
most people. Nonsense, farce and slang are just a few topics addressed in this humorous
compilation. Under analysis, however, is the opening essay of this book called
“Introduction to The Defendant.” The main points of conversation in this essay are
undervaluation of the world, pessimists versus optimists, and the constant, wrongful
interchange of the words, “good” and “bad.”

Chesterton makes a strong point that people have been underrating elements of life for
years. As examples, he lists the environment, happiness and even ourselves as things that
have continually been seen as less than they are. To support this accusation, Chesterton
uses a strong simile, “For the mind and eyes of the average man this world is as lost as
Eden and as sunken as Atlantis.” I don’t necessarily agree with this opinion because
currently, people have been valuing the world and have been trying to save the
environment. For instance, saving the oceans and turtles has recently become an
important cause around the world. Many have resulted to reusable straws to prevent the
plastic disposable ones from ending up in the oceans. On the contrary, we do harm the
environment daily with our use of gasoline-fueled vehicles, but the good we do
outweighs the bad. We also have had fundraisers to plant more trees to compensate for
the destruction big-budget companies have caused to forest habitats. Therefore, I
wouldn’t go so far as to say we don’t value our planet.

Chesterton’s second belief in this essay is pessimists are not the ones in revolt, but the
optimists are. He uses logic to back this claim by pointing out that revolting requires
some sort of cheerfulness and that pessimism appeals to everyone’s weaker side. He says,
“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a
desperate and suicidal effort to persuade all the other people how good they are.” I
somewhat agree with this opinion. On one hand, I agree with revolution requiring cheer
but on the other hand, why would optimists be revolting if they see the brighter side of
life? If anything, the pessimists would see the problems in society and want to revolt
against them, not the pessimists. This claim of his is legitimate in a sense, but not thought
out completely.

The third and final acknowledgement Chesterton has in this individual essay is a
classic good versus bad situation, particularly the use of the words as descriptions toward
everyday items. He claims the words are used improperly. For example, he says a bad
knife in our eyes is not actually bad, but not good enough for our high standards. In other
words, we misjudge the worth of material items. He puts strong emphasis on the knife to
support his theory. He states that a dull knife is still a good knife because it would be a
miracle during the Stone Age. This section of the essay is loaded with powerful language
and comparisons. My favorite is, “Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole
Arctic continent does not make ivory black.” This quote embodies the main idea of this
piece, which is the views of human are often skewed and biased. We often have
expectations much too high in the grand scheme of things and fail to see the usefulness of
things that may not be the best of the best, like the analogy of the knife. I absolutely agree
with the statement Chesterton makes in this segment of the essay. Nowadays, people
stress getting name brands and the best possible to prove better than people who don’t,
which in my opinion, is a complete waste of time.

To summarize, Chesterton’s main arguments are optimists are the revolutionists of the
world, we don’t realize the value of the world around us and; finally, bad is used too
often and improperly. In conclusion, the fundamentals to take away from this piece of
writing is you should value your environment and ivory is white.