Dickens writes about slavery and violence as the two most major flaws in the fabric of American society, insisting that slavery corrupted both whites and Blacks, and that the free states were happily complicit in the system because of their inaction. Due in part to America’s comforts with slavery and violence, he stated, there is a universal distrust in anything other than individualism as a pathway to survival in the country. The path to success for the American, he observed, meant to carry a healthy desire to set oneself apart from the ideals of others.
