The Four Stages of Cruelty

The Four Stages of Cruelty by William Hogarth depicts the stages of development of a soul who chooses a path of cruelty and serves the basest desires – as well as, the karmic returns for taking such a path.

The Four Stages of Cruelty are four etchings about the life of a fictional character, Tom Nero. Created in 1751, Hogarth's prints highlight the moral implications of choosing a life of cruelty.

In the first etching, First Stage of Cruelty, viewers see a young Tom Nero, dressed up as a joker, acting viciously upon a dog. In the print, we can see others causing distress to animals as well, but Tom's level of cruelty is far more atrocious than the other boys.

First Stage of Cruelty by William Hogarth

In the Second Stage of Cruelty, the viewer sees Tom has grown into a man, and as his years increased, so did his appetite for cruelty. The etching's viewers see Tom beating a horse senseless, while people around him are somehow unaware or unconcerned about the horse's fate. Nor do they perceive another man nearby beating a sheep to death. Add to that, in the background, we can see a boy being run over by a carriage by an oblivious driver. While Hogarth is directly showing his audience Tom's cruel behavior, he is also showing how no one is doing anything about it; silently implicating them in Tom's immoral behavior; while also silently imploring his audience to take notice of and tend to those around them, especially the vulnerable who have no voice – the animals and the children.

Second Stage of Cruelty by William Hogarth

In the third etching, Cruelty In Perfection, viewers now witness how Tom's cruelty reaches its pinnacle, after he rapes, kills, and steals from a woman, who appears to be with child. It is these gruesome acts that finally awaken people to Tom's perfectly cruel character and the outrageous level of self-interest he has for himself, while cruelly and dastardly killing another. At this stage, the people finally notice Tom's behavior and arrest him.

Cruelty In Perfection by William Hogarth

In the fourth and final etching, The Reward of Cruelty, we see the result of a life lived by cruelty when Tom receives his ghastly punishment for the woman's murder. As Tom lies on the judgment table in pieces, viewers observe karmic justice as a dog eats his entrails.

The Reward of Cruelty by William Hogarth

The value of Four Stages of Cruelty is how it explicitly shows the viewer the eventual and karmic justice that befall people who behave with cruelty. The viewer also witnesses how the level of punishment is equal to the level of cruelty, and what it actually takes to pay for one's sins. Hogarth warns the viewer that the cost of justice is high to the cruel ones, and what it looks like when justice is served. Finally, while advising people to not chose a life of cruelty, William Hogarth is imploring us from the past, from his carefully crafted, masterfully thoughtful etchings, from the very dust of history, to look around and stop those who are causing any of God's creatures distress.

Hogarth's etched messages are even more poignant in today's technological environment where Likes are more important than feelings, where texting while driving can change lives in a blink of an eye, and where a person's mobile phone blocks them from looking into the eyes of another.

In the end, will we look up from our phones and wonder – what is the karmic price for playing on my iPhone? Or, will we just keep playing CandyCrush until the day Karma comes to crush us? Only time will tell.

But if we learn anything from Hogarth's Four Stages of Cruelty, we understand this – there will be a price to pay – and each one chooses their cost by how one treats each and every living creature, each and every day.

Maybe it is time to start paying Attention, instead of paying Karma, Humanity.

References

Hogarth, William. (1751). The Four Stages of Cruelty [Etching].

The Four Stages of Cruelty. (2021, February 19). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Stages_of_Cruelty

William Hogarth. (2021, March 14). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hogarth

FreedomProject Media. (2020, October 16). The Four Stages Of Cruelty [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-4Vd3RPgQI