Ann Kamanga

Jude V. Nixon
ENL 110-18
7 April 2015
The Family Dickenss Hard Times

A circus is a traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns

that provides

performances, typically in a large tent and in many

different locations. During the

19th century, circuses were growing in

popularity and operating all throughout England.

They operated as family

entertainment and gatherings, provided a welcome break for

working

people. Since the performers who are part of the circus travel with one
another

and see each other on a daily basis, they naturally growing into

an extended family.

(Jando) Throughout Hard Times, Charles Dickens

shows the difference between

the

circus families and the other families in

the novel.

During the 19th century, circuses were beginning to operate all

throughout England. They were becoming very popular, and most acts
were performed doing different events. They would normally stay at
one area for a about a month which gave them time to practice for
upcoming shows. Circus shows were not always outside under a tent,
they used to be in wooden buildings which would be used like a theater

While the main attraction was trick-riders, other acts included jugglers,
trapeze acts, tightrope walkers and clowns. Animals such as elephants
and horses accompanied these performers. The circus functioned as a
pleasant interlude for the normally busy lives people led. In Hard
Times, Charles Dickens uses the circus as an ideal family unit amidst
his many dysfunctional family units that pervade the novel.
One way that circus members were able to put on great shows
together was because they built a special relationship full of trust,
commitment, and contribution. For a family to be stable they must
communicate, listen to one another, share thoughts and contribute
each others emotions. This does not happen to be the case for the
Gradgrinds. There is Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind and their children Louisa,
Jane and Tom. Gradgrind raises his children to believe nothing but
facts, which gives them no time for imagination or no time to express
their emotions. Because of this, his children and wife have become
corrupt. Throughout the novel, we see how Mr. Grandgrinds philosophy
on facts affects his family. Starting with Ms. Gradgrind, Dickens
presents her as weak and passive because she cannot seem to
function without her husbands assistance. Gradgrind has manipulated
her into believing that she has to depend on him for everything.
Louisa, the daughter, was raised to believe nothing but facts, which led
her to hide her feelings and emotions. When she gets married to
Bounderby, she is not sure if that is what she wants and she takes

matters into her own hands. Towards the end of book two, Louisa has
an emotional breakdown about her childhood, about which she
confronts her father. She says, How could you give me life, and take
from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of
conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the
sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O father, what have
you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this
great wilderness here!(Dickens; Book 2 Chapter 12) At this point
Louisa is telling her father, Thomas Gradgrind, about how he has
ruined her childhood by not raising her like a normal child by
brainwashing her to believe in nothing but facts meaning no
imagination emotions and because of that she is unable to live a
normal life. As for Tom, the son, he is raised same way as Louisa but he
is different because he grows up looking out for himself and he ends up
hurting people along the way. He robs Bounderbys bank and sets up
Stephen Blackpool to be blamed for the crime. Due to Gradgrind, Tom
does not know how to share or act towards certain things meaning he
does not know what he is doing is right or wrong, and confessing up to
mistakes that he did, which lead him to being careless. The Gradgrinds
are a dysfunctional family whose members misbehave because of how
the family had been run. The family does not know how to speak to
each other about their problems because they were never taught how
to go about it. Towards this subject, critics said Tom Gradgrind, more

than his father, sees Louisas marriage to Bounderby as strengthening

of power relationships between the two families apart from providing
a good financial deal to his sister. Tom employs a mercenary approach.
He views matrimonial alliance as economic advantage or exploitation.
And he is not wrong in doing so. (Williams) Critics are saying that
Grandgring was only watching out for the future of his children by
making sure that they will be financially stable which leads into
happiness. They see nothing wrong in what Grandgrind was doing it is
just the way he was doing it.
Considering that their marriage has little to do with love, Mr.
Bounderby and Louisa are also a dysfunctional family. This all began
when Mr. Bounderby indirectly proposes to Louisa through Mr.
Gradgrind who plays the major role to the existence of their marriage
because Bounderby was his good friend and he knew he would take
care of her daughter. Louisa was not thinking the same, she says;
Father,' said Louisa, 'do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?' Mr. Gradgrind
was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question. 'Well, my
child,' he returned, 'I really cannot take upon myself to say.'
'Father,' pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, 'do you
ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?' 'My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.'
'Father,' she still pursued, 'does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?'
'Really, my dear,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'it is difficult to answer your
question.(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 15) When Louisa is asked about the

proposal she turns the question to her father asking what she should
do. Of course, Louisa tries to please her father so she marries
Bounderby. Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a
nuptial trip to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might take the
opportunity of seeing how the Hands got on in those parts, and
whether they, too, required to be fed with gold spoons; the happy pair
departed for the railroad. (Dickens Book 2 Chapter 16) Their
honeymoon shows how dysfunctional their marriage is because
Bounderby chooses to go to Lyon to observe the factories that are
there rather than to only go to spend some time with his bride.
Louisa does not know how to love Bounderby because of her
fathers philosophy on facts that she was raised with. Louisa is
challenges when James Harthouse moves to Coketown. James
Harthouse declares his love for Louisa, who then turns to her father for
help rather than her own husband. She does now how to act towards
Harthouse that she tells her father, And I so young. In this condition,
fatherfor I show you now, without fear or favor, the ordinary
deadened state of my mind as I know ityou proposed my husband to
me. I took him. I never made a pretense to him or you that I loved
him. I knew, and, father, you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I
was not wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and
useful to Tom. I made that wild escape into something visionary, and
have slowly found out how wild it was.(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 15)

She confesses to her father that she never loved Bounderby or that
she never knew if she ever did. This shows that due to the lack of
emotional connection and communication, the relationship between
Mr. Grangrind and Louisa has progressively diminished the relationship
between Louisa and Bounderby and Louisa and Harthouse. The lack of
love and communication within this marriage that Gradgrinds
philosophy portrayed in for financial and business needs causes this
marriage to be dysfunction.
Contrary to these images of dysfunctional families in the novel,
Dickens sets up the circus as his model family. A circus performer lives
life with freedom, no worries, humor and fun. When working in a circus,
all you do is perform and act which is something that you choose to do
yourself. A very different model from that of European circuses, which
for the most part remained under the control of performing
families.(Victorian) Circus performers enjoy life with their large
extended families who love acting, supporting and running the circus
business together. Yet there was a remarkable gentleness and
childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of
sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another,
deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much generous
construction, as the every-day virtues of any class of people in the
world.(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 6) Dickens portrays the circus family
as a perfect family who are a warm and caring family who respect,

work and help each other. Circus families are known to sacrifice for
each other and the idea of altruism; because of this they have a strong
emotional connection. Tom Grandgrinds actions towards the end of the
novel when he seeks for help from the circus shows how the circus
family is Dickens model family that does function.
In all, circuses were becoming very popular during the 19th
century. They functioned as a pleasant interlude for the working people
and entertainment for families. Charles Dickens Hard Times is filled
with many dysfunctional families that he uses the circus as an ideal
family. For the Grandgrinds, the philosophy that they grew up with did
not give the results that Tom Grandgrind wanted. For Mr. Bounderby
and Louisa, their marriage was not successful because Louisa was not
taught how to love or show affection to another human being. All these
families proved the point that the circus families were the ideal family.

References
Dickens, C. (199). Hard times. Champaign, Ill.: Project Gutenberg
Jando, Domonique. "SHORT HISTORY OF THE CIRCUS." - Circopedia.
Cycopedia, 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.circopedia.org/SHORT_HISTORY_OF_THE_CIRCUS>.
"Victorian Circus." Victoria and Albert Museum, Online Museum, Web
Team, Webmaster@vam.ac.uk. Victorian Circus, 2014. Web. 6
Apr. 2015.
Williams, Mukesh. "Dickens Hard Times in Our Hard Times ." The
Copperfield Review. WordPress, 28 Apr. 2012. Web. 04 May 2015.