Hard Times is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book is one of a number of state-of-the-nation novels published around the same time, another being North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which aimed to highlight the social and economic pressures that some people were experiencing.

The novel is unusual in that it is not set in London as was Dickens' wont, but in the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown. It has met mixed critical response from a diverse range of critics, such as F.R. Leavis, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Macaulay. This was usually for Dickens' treatment of trade unions, coupled with post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalistic mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era of Britain.

Characters in "Hard Times"

Major characters

Mr. Thomas Gradgrind

Tom Gradgrind is a utilitarian who is the founder of the educational system in Coketown. 'Eminently practical' is Gradgrind's recurring description throughout the novel, and practicality is something he zealously aspires to. He represents the stringency of 'Fact', statistics and other materialistic pursuits. Only after his daughter's breakdown does he come to a realisation that things such as poetry, fiction and other pursuits are not 'destructive nonsense'.

Josiah Bounderby

Josiah Bounderby is a business associate of Mr. Gradgrind. He is a bombastic, yet thunderous merchant given to lecturing others, and boasting about being a self-made man. He employs many of the other central characters of the novel, and his rise to prosperity is shown to be an example of social mobility. He marries Mr. Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, some 30 years his junior, in what turns out to be a loveless marriage. Bounderby is the main target of Dickens' attack on the supposed moral superiority of the wealthy, and is revealed to be an utter hypocrite in his sensational comeuppance at the end of the novel.

Louisa Bounderby nee Gradgrind (AKA "Loo")

Louisa is the unemotional, distant and eldest child of the Gradgrind family. She has been taught to abnegate her emotions, and finds it hard to express herself clearly, saying as a child she has 'unmanageable thoughts'. She is married to Josiah Bounderby, in a very logical and businesslike manner, representing the emphasis on factuality and business pathos of her education. Her union is a disaster and she is tempted into adultery by James Harthouse, yet, she manages to resist this temptation with help from Sissy.

Cecilia Jupe (AKA "Sissy")

The embodiment of imagination, hope and faith. Abandoned by her father, a circus performer at Sleary's circus. Gradgrind offers Sissy the chance to study at his school and to come and live at Stone Lodge with the Gradgrind children. Due to Sissy's high morals and natural warm-heartedness she has a huge influence on the Gradgrind family. When Mrs Gradgrind dies she largely takes over the role of mothering the younger Gradgrind Children: Jane, Adam Smith and Malthus.

Stephen Blackpool

'Ol' Stephen' as he is referred to by his fellow 'Hands' is an improvident, indigent worker at one of Bounderby's mills. His life is immensely strenuous, and he is married to a constantly inebriated wife who comes and goes throughout the novel. He forms a close bond with Rachael, a female worker. After a dispute with Bounderby, he is dismissed from his work at the Coketown mills and is forced to find work elsewhere. Whilst absent from Coketown he is accused of being guilty of a crime that he has been framed for. Tragically, on his way back to vindicate himself he falls into a pit, and seriously injures himself. He is rescued, but dies of the pain of the fall.

Stephen is a man "of perfect integrity", a man who will never give up his moral stand point to follow along with the crowd (which leads to the conflict with Slackbridge and the Trade Union).

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Download Hard Times by Charles Dickens

PDF version, 641KB, 277Pages.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.

Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity University.

CHAPTER I—THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

‘NOW, WHAT I WANT IS, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,—all helped the emphasis.

‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment