Le Hoang Linh Hope (by John Galsworthy)

D05 – K50

What will you do if your life sucks? To many people, this question is not easy to
answer. Some can be resigned to their fate, waiting for the end of their life without any
significant resistance. However, for the old man in “Hope” by John Galsworthy, a
sucking life does not mean an end in its absolute terms. He has a glorious time in the
past to which he clings for inspiration to go forwards though sometimes this glory can
not clear away his everyday burdens. He leads a life of poverty or even below the level
to be called the poor. From the clothes he puts on to his lame leg which instantly gives
him pains, all are to tell the passers-by how miserable he is. At least more than one time
in the story does the author describe how he manages to drag his invalid leg home or
through mud. Besides his own misery, he also has a wife with gouty rheumatism and a
room which is the reason for his occasional special effort to rise up after a mass of pain
from the shrunken leg when the rent comes. Maybe, our ragged statue needs no more
shabby materials and careless sculptures to be more “ragged” since what it is presented
to us touches the bottom of our imagination of what is poor.

However, not like many people in the same situation would do, the old man still takes
control of his life, knowing what to do when it comes to the matter of making both ends
meet without ever questioning “why do I continue living?” He stands by the sidewalk
like a statue confronting the hardships, contempt, ignorance that life casts on him. He
accepts the challenge without wondering why Life is so mean to him. His gray blue
eyes tell us that he does not believe in miracles, but still hold on to the end just because
he was born to live. Life seen by the old man is maybe a journey on which no one has
the right to give up, no matter how hard it can be. Therefore, he stands there in every
condition of weather, under any biased contemplation… He feels the pain of his lame
leg as a matter of fact, not pretending to take something out of it, but people see it as
his means of coaxing their compassion. Yes, above every prejudice, he is a man, true to
his nature of being born to live under any circumstances. He deserves to be considered
as “a statue to the great, unconscious human virtue, the most hopeful and inspiring of
all things on Earth.” The old man does not hope because he does not believe in miracles
as he says “there is nothing in it” or “we can’t be worse off.” But he believes in the
philosophy of life “life doesn’t turn out to be as bad as it seems to be.” It means there is
no end to a road; it only ends when you believe so. That is why to live, according to
Galsworthy’s definition, is to go on with “Courage without hope.”