The Charity Ball
The Charity Ball - meaning Summary
Charity as Social Show
Byron satirizes performative charity and social hypocrisy in a short address to a woman who stages a ‘‘charity ball’’. The poem contrasts public piety with private indifference: while a suffering husband or disgraced sinner endures real need, society’s self-righteous elite prefer theatrical benevolence. The speaker condemns moral complacency and the way ostentatious philanthropy can mask cruelty and abandonment of those most vulnerable.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat matter the pangs of a husband and father, If his sorrows in exile be great or be small, So the Pharisee’s glories around her she gather, And the saint patronizes her ‘charity ball!’ What matters–a heart which, though faulty, was feeling, Be driven to excesses which once could appal– That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing, As the saint keeps her charity back for ‘the ball’!
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