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Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
May 2020
Dickens' life
Charles Dickens
Dickens's narrative
Style and reputation
A didactic aim
Portsmouth
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, on the southern cost of England, in 1812.
He had an unhappy childhood. That experience marked him for ever. Dickens move to London, where his father was imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12 Dickens was put on work in a factory and endured appalling contitions as well as loneliness and despair. It was a very traumatic experience . After three years he returned to school, but the experience was never forgotten and became fictionalised in two of his better-known novels' David Copperfild' and great expectations'.
When his father was released, he was sent to a school in London.
After school became a very successful shorthand reporter of parliamentary debates and began to work as a reporter for a newspaper in 1832.
Life and work
Then 1833 he became parliamentary journalist for The Morning Chronicle. With the new contacts in the press he was able to publish a series of sketches under the pseudonym " Boz ". Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in April 1836, and during the same year he became editor of Bentley's Miscellany and published the second series of Sketches by Boz. After the success of The Pickwick Pupers, humorouse stories about group of eccentrics who met to recount their adventures, Dickens started a full- time career as novelist, although he continued his journalistic and editorial activities. He publish 16 novels.
The protagonists of his autobiographical novels, Oliver Twist, David Copperfild ( 1850) and Little Dorrit, became the symbols of an exploited childood.
Other works include Black house(1853), Hard Times ( 1854) Great Expectations (1861), which deal whit the conditions of the poor and the working class in general. He was estranged from his wife in 1858 after birth of their ten children, but maintained relations with his mistress, the actress Ellen Ternan. He died a stoke in 1870. He is buried at Westminster Abby.
Life
(1838)
( 1850)
(1853)
Novels
( 1854)
(1861)
(1857)
Dickens shifted the social frontiers of the novel:
the 18th century realistic, upper- middle- class was world replaced by the on of the lower orders.
His aim was to arouse the reader's interest by exaggerating his character's habits.
He was always on the side of the poor, the outcast and also the working class.
Dickens created caricatures.
He exaggerated and ridiculed the peculiar social characteristics of the middle, lower and lowest classes.
Character
Children are often the most important characters in Dickens's novels. children became are the moral teacher, models of the way people ought to behave towrds one another. Dickens' task was to make the ruling classes aware of the social problems without offending his middle- class readers.
Dickens employed the most effective language choice of adjectives, repetitions of words and structures, juxtapositions of images and ideas, hyperbolic and ironic remarks.
He is considered as the greatest novelist in the English language.
Dickens was form and foremost a storyteller, narrator. His novels were influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, fables and nursery rhymes, by the 18th century novelists and essayist, by Gothic novels.
His plot are well -planned even if at times they appear a bit artificial, sentimental and episodic.
London was the setting of most his novel: he always seemed to have something new to say about it and showed an intimated knowledge of it.
He was aware of the spiritual and material corruption of daily reality under the impact of industrialism; in drawing popular attention to public abuses, evils and wrongs of London misery and crime.
Plot
PLOT
Hard Times
HARD TIMES
- Is a social critic novel by Charles Dickens
- Published as a serial from 1 April to 12 August 1854 in Dickens weekly publication, Household Words
THE CRITIQUE OF SOCIETY
- Focuses on the difference between the rich and the poor at Dickens’s time,
between factory owners and workers
had few options for improving their terrible living and working conditions.
- Criticizes the Utilitarianism exclude the importance of moral and spiritual values
- Against the selfishness of materialistic thought and capitalism in the education of the children of his time
SETTING
- The novel is set in Coketown, an imaginary industrial city
- The fictional city stands for a real industrial mill town in mid-19th century Victorian England.
different view of the city
the town symbolizes productivity and industry
it may just be depressing
STRUCTURE
- The novel is divided into three books
- The titles of each book are related to Galatians
"For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Book I is entitled "Sowing"
Book II is entitled "Reaping"
Book III is entitled "Garnering"
BOOK 1
BOOK 1: SOWING
The beginning
- The novel opens in a classroom in Coketown
- The superintendent Thomas Gradgrind is interrogating Sissy Jupe
grew up in a circus, where fantasy and imagination are not defects
the circus is in sharp contrast with the thought of Gradgrind
- Gradgrind asks her for the exact definition of horse but Sissy, cannot answer
- Her classmate Bitzer give a zoological profile
BOOK 1: SOWING
Gradgrind's children discovered at the circus
- After school Gradgrind sees, behind the shed of the equestrian circus Sleary, Louisa and Tom
- The children look inside the tent together with other boys
- Angry, Gradgrind takes his children away
- The tow try to explain to him that it was just curiosity, but Gradgrind admits no apologies
BOOK 1: SOWING
The Sissy's choice
- After bringing Tom and Louisa home, Gradgrind leaves home with Josiah Bounderby
Gradgrind's friend, a manufacturer and mill owner
often gives dramatic and falsified stories of his childhood
- The two must meet Sissy's father and tell him that his daughter can no longer attend school because of the risk that her ideas will spread in the classroom.
- Sissy's father is not at home
- Two circus artists introduce themselves, informing Gradgrind and Bounderby that Sissy's father has abandoned her, convinced that her daughter's life would have been better without him
BOOK 1: SOWING
The Sissy's choice
- Sissy realizes that her father has abandoned her
- Gradgrind imposes a choice on Sissy: stay in the circus and give up education or attend school but leave the circus
- Sissy will choose to leave the circus and bid farewell to friends
- In the meantime at home Tom and Louisa discuss their feelings
- Tom finds himself in a state of dissatisfaction
- Louisa also expresses her discontent with her childhood
BOOK 1: SOWING
The worker Blackpool
- The tenth chapter introduces the factory workers
- One of this workers is Stephen Blackpool, who leads a tiring life, married to an alcoholic woman who had run away from home
- He just got out of work and he meets his friend Rachael
- Back home, he finds his wife lying drunk on the floor, who has just made an unwelcome return to Coketown.
BOOK 1: SOWING
- The next day Stephen visits Bounderby to ask him for advice on how to end his marriage and be free to marry Rachael
- Mrs. Sparsit, an old widow with important kinship who did the work at Bounderby's house, disapproves of Stephen's request
- Bounderby tells Stephen that he cannot afford to cancel the marriage because the bureaucratic procedure is long and too expensive for a worker
BOOK 1: SOWING
The proposal
- Gradgrind tells Louisa that Josiah Bounderby, 30 years older than her, has proposed marriage to her
- Louisa passively accepts the offer
- They set out to Lyons
- Only Sissy can understand Louisa's true feelings
BOOK 2
During those two years Tom had changed a lot, becoming surly and arrogant.
BOOK 2: REAPING
Mr. Harthouse
- The second book takes place two years after Mr. Bounderby and Louisa's wedding.
- Gradgrind has become a Member of Parliament. He offers to write a cover letter for Mr. James Harthouse, a gentleman who constantly changes jobs but never finds his vocation, so that he can deliver it to Mr. Bounderby.
- Mr. Bounderby receives the letter and, intrigued, invites Mr. Harthouse to dinner. As usual, Bounderby tells the story of his life boldly and Harthouse, exhausted, begins to focus his attention on Louisa, noticing his melancholy.
- Towards the end of the evening Tom joins the others, but is scolded by Mr. Bounderby because of his delay. Tom feels contempt for Mr. Bounderby, but seems to feel some sympathy for Mr. Harthouse. Despite this, even Mr. Harthouse considers him a brat.
BOOK 2: REAPING
Stephen Blackpool and the bank robbery
- During a union meeting in Mr. Bounderby's factory, Stephen Blackpool declared himself definitively out of the company's plans.
- For his act, he is summoned two days later to Mr. Bounderby's house, in the presence of Louisa and Mr. Harthouse. After heated debate and numerous accuses, Bounderby fires Blackpool.
- Louisa and Tom decide to help Blackpool and meet him secretly.
- Louisa offers him some money, but Stephen takes only a small part of it, promising that he will return it.
- Tom, instead, tells him that he has a plan; Blackpool was supposed to wait outside the bank.
- Two days later the bank was robbed.
Tom had told Blackpool to stay around the bank to make Stephen the prime suspect. Blackpool would have been easy to accuse because, after the dismissal, he would need money.
Louisa is very depressed and accuses her father of not giving her the opportunity to have a happy childhood. In fact she believes that, due to the education received, she is unable to express her emotions.
BOOK 2: REAPING
Love refusals and departures
- After the robbery, Mrs. Sparsit stays at Mr. Bounderby's house, where she notices a certain complicity between Louisa and Mr. Harthouse. So she decides to keep an eye on them.
- A few days after her arrival at Bounderby's house, Mrs. Sparsit is accompanied by Tom to the station, where they have to wait for Mr. Harthouse, returning from Yorkshire.
- After a long wait Mrs. Sparsit realizes that it is just a deception and returns home, hoping to catch Louisa and Mr. Harthouse in the act; she find them in the woods.
- Mr. Harthouse confesses his love to Louisa, who however rejects it. Mr. Harthouse leaves on horseback, while Louisa goes to the station.
- Mrs. Sparsit, convinced that the two must meet in Coketown, follows Louisa to the station, but then loses sight of her.
- Louisa takes the train to go to her father.
BOOK 3
Louisa decides not to go back to Mr. Bounderby's house; because of their separation Mr. Bounderby returns to his old celibate life.
BOOK 3: GARNERING
The end of the marriage
- Mrs. Sparsit informs Mr. Bounderby of the relationship between Louisa and Mr. Harthouse and Mr. Bounderby decides to go to Mr. Gradgrind's house.
- Mr. Gradgrind reveals to Mr. Bounderby that Louisa has rejected Mr. Harthouse, but Mr. Bounderby doesn't want to calm down. In fact, he is furious, both for Mr. Harthouse's love declaration and for the false information received by Mrs. Sparsit.
- Mr. Bounderby decides to give Louisa a second chance to save their marriage; she should return home by the following midday.
- On the advice of Sissy Jupe, Mr. Harthouse leaves Coketown.
BOOK 3: GARNERING
Mr. Bounderby's mother
- Mrs. Sparsit introduces Mrs. Pegler to Mr. Bounderby; she is an old woman whom Mrs. Sparsit had seen numerous times near Mr. Bounderby's home.
- In the presence of Mr. Gradgrind, Tom, Sissy Jupe and Rachael, Mrs. Sparsit accuses Mrs. Pegler of being an accomplice in the bank robbery. The main suspect in the robbery was indeed Stephen Blackpool, and Mrs. Pegler had spent a lot of time with Stephen and Rachael in the previous days.
- Mrs. Pegler dismisses the charges and confesses that she is Mr. Bounderby's mom. With this statement, all Mr. Bounderby's stories about the poverty of his childhood are disproved, humiliating him in public.
Ms Pegler had been kindly greeted by Stephen and Rachael who, unaware to who she was, had offered her some tea and had given directions to Mr. Bounderby's house.
Mr. Sleary decides to save Tom to repay Mr. Gradgrind. He had in fact welcomed Sissy.
BOOK 3: GARNERING
The real thief
- Stephen Blackpool, after leaving Coketown and after looking for work using a false name, decides to return to the city to try to exculpate himself. During his return, however, he falls into a water well.
- He is found by Sissy Jupe and Louisa and, in point of death, asks Mr. Gradgrind to clear him of the charges. Louisa and Mr. Gradgrind, considering him not guilty, begin to think that Tom is the thief. Sissy Jupe therefore reveals that she advised Tom to hide in the Mr. Sleary’s circus, which had moved to another city.
- Louisa and Sissy Jupe go to the circus and find Tom, who confesses everything. He explains that he needed money, and that a robbery would have been the only way to get it.
- Mr. Gradgrind is very disappointed, both for Tom's actions, and for himself for not giving his son impeccable teaching. Mr. Gradgrind decides that Tom has to leave for Liverpool, from where he would have taken a ship to America.
- The conversation is interrupted by Bitzer, who is looking forward to claiming the headmoney put by Mr. Bounderby to catch the thief.
- Tom is saved by Mr. Sleary, the owner of the circus; he, with a magic trick, distracts Bitzer, allowing Tom to escape.
BOOK 3: GARNERING
An unhappy ending
- Mrs. Sparsit is fired from Mr. Bounderby and returns to live with her aunt, Lady Scadgers. Mrs. Sparsit slowly becomes bitter towards others, like her aunt.
- Mr. Bounderby spends all his money on speculation and dies of a heart attack.
- Tom dies in remorse after writing the last letter to Louisa.
- Louisa ages without getting married and without children.
- Mr. Gradgrind abandons utilitarianism.
- Rachael, after a long illness, starts working again.
- Sissy has children and is the only one with a happy ending.
Only Sissy has a happy ending; this shows that it is imagination and fantasy that make happy, not facts and calculations.
This is the moral of the story.
Thomas
Gradgrind
Josiah
Bounderby
Characters
Louisa
Bounderby
The Main Characters
Sissy
Tom
Gradgrind
Stephen
Blackpool
Thomas Gradgrind
- He represents utilitarianism, the negation of every form of imagination.
- His name is formed by the word “grind” that means “mechanicals, tedious”.
- Mr Gradgrind is the expression of Victorian education system.
- He is the headmaster of a school in coketown and he thinks that children are pitchers that have to be filled with notion.
- At the end of the novel Gradgrinds understand how is world is limited.
Josiah Bounderby
- He is a buisnessman.
- Arrogant, callous and self-centred.
- Friend of Mr. Gradgrind.
- He alaways remind his (false) humble origins.
- He marries louisa Gradgrind and this marrige was loveless.
Louisa Bounderby
- She is Mr. Gradgrind's daughter.
- She supress her feelings.
- After her marrige she was tempted by Mr. Harthouse.
- The marriage was dissolved.
- At the end she finally knew the value of the emotions.
Cecilia Jupe (Sissy)
- spontaneous and imaginative girl, who doesn’t accept Gradgrind's world.
- At the end of the novel, she is the only character who gets a happy ending.
- Sissy is the main force for good in the novel. She is kind, caring, and loving.
- she never stops being the only emotionally positive force in Coketown
Stephen Blackpool
- He works for Bunderby.
- He is the rappresentations of honesty.
- He lose his job.
- He is accused of committing a crime.
- He falls into a pit and he dieds
Tom Gradgrind
- He is the second child of Mr.Gradgrind. Initially resentful of his father's Utilitarian education.
- He ends up a degenerate gambler who robs Bounderby's bank to pay his debts.
- Tom will disappoint his father, who will re-evaluate the educational principles of utilitarianism.
UTILITARIANISM
AND
CLASSICAL ECONOMICS
Themes
The Main Themes
- In this novel, Dickens presents us with some children raised and educated under this system. Their emotions are repressed, their imaginations starved, and their creativity discouraged.
- They grow into adults that don't know how be moral and are unable to understand or emotionally connect with anyone.
- play and pleasure turn out to be a kind of hard work as difficult as factory labor
- physically demanding than that of the circus performers, who are bruised and beaten daily in order to create an imaginative release for the audience
- Mr. Sleary: "the people must be amused" if they are to remain human
- If this the "fancy" is ignored, it transforms into harmful self-justification, destructive myth-making, and unethical deception.
CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION
- Specific view on wealth.
- Big difference between rich and poor people.
- This difference cannot be overpassed.
- Rich people invent a false myth about poor people that can become rich.
WEALTH
WOMEN
- woman was the one who would not only nurture the bodies of her children and husband, but also their minds.
- The Gradgrind's educational experiment wanted to teach his girls and boys the same things
FAMILY
- The family is very important for the happiness.
- The relationships in a family must be love based .
- The family has to be about as the circus where the love could tie people and life.
MORALITY AND ETHICS
- In Hard Times, the moral attributes that the villains lack are empathy, generosity, and altruism. For Dickens, these are the foundation of human relationships.
- who possess these qualities are more advantaged to manage the world