HardCharles

Times
Dickens

Themes/Issues/Application of Literary Theories

Nur Atiqah binti Ghani

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Nur Hidayah binti Ahmad
Kamal
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Nur Ameera Fateha binti
Alias
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Siti Khadijah binti Abdul
Kadir
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Themes
The fundamental and often
universal ideas explored in a
literary work

The Mechanization of Human Beings

Hard Timessuggests that nineteenth-century Englands
overzealous adoption of industrialization threatens to turn
human beings into machines by thwarting (preventing) the
development of their emotions and imaginations through
the actions of
Gradgrind-who educates the young children of his
family and his school in the ways of fact - and his
follower, Bounderby-who treats the workers in his
factory as emotionless objects that are easily exploited
for his own self-interest.
[Ch 5 Book I], there is a parallel between the factory
Hands and the Gradgrind childrenboth lead
monotonous, uniform existences, untouched by pleasure.
Consequently, their fantasies and feelings are dulled,
and they become almost mechanical themselves.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hardtimes/themes.html

The Opposition Between Fact and

Fancy
The opposition between "fancy" and "fact" is
illustrated from the earliest pages of the novel.
Clearly, the Gradgrind school opposes fancy,
imaginative literature and "wondering." Instead, they
encourage the pursuit of "hard fact" and statistics
through scientific investigation and logical deduction.
But the Gradgrinds are so merciless and thorough in
their education that they manage to kill the souls of
their pupils. Sissy Jupe and the members of Sleary's
circus company stand as a contrast, arguing that "the
people must be amused." Life cannot be exclusively
devoted to labor.
http://www.gradesaver.com/hard-times/study-guide/themes

The Importance of Feminity

During the Victorian era, women were commonly associated with

supposedly feminine traits like compassion, moral purity, and

emotional sensitivity.
Hard Timessuggests that because they possess these traits,
women can counteract the mechanizing effects of industrialization.
When Stephen feels depressed about the monotony of his life as

a factory worker, Rachaels gentle fortitude inspires him to keep

going. He sums up her virtues by referring to her as his guiding
angel.
Sissy introduces love into the Gradgrind household, ultimately
teaching Louisa how to recognize her emotions.
Through the various female characters in the novel, Dickens
suggests that feminine compassion is necessary to restore social
harmony.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hardtimes/themes.html

Other Themes

Utilitarianism and Classical Economics

The ideas behind Utilitarianism, statistical economics, and
the way they may shape government and educational policy all
run together to present a bleak future for the children
raised under them. Those who idealize these social sciences
imagine a logical world run according to the dictates of the
marketplace.
In this novel, some children raised and educated under this
system. Their emotions are repressed, their imaginations
starved, and their creativity discouraged. As a result, they
grow into adults that don't know how be moral and are unable
to understand or emotionally connect with one anyone.

http://www.shmoop.com/hard-times-dickens/philosophical-viewpointsutilitarianism-classical-economics-theme.html

Other Themes

Wealth
In this novel, the gulf between rich and poor is vast and cannot be
crossed, despite the myth created by the rich that the poor can lift
themselves up by their bootstraps. Those who rise do so at the
expense of others, and even then their progress is slow, painful, and
does not reach much higher than where they started and anyone
who says otherwise is telling self-serving lies.
Love
InHard Times, love itself can be a positive or negative emotion,
regardless of whether it occurs between romantic partners or
parents and children. There are examples of socially sanctioned and
nurturing domestic love. There's also spiritually uplifting love that
inspires better behavior and the improvement of the self. And
finally there's disturbed love that overreaches the normal
boundaries of the relationship.

1.http://www.shmoop.com/hard-times-dickens/wealth-theme.html
2.http://www.shmoop.com/hard-times-dickens/love-theme.html

Issues & Literary

Theories
The body ideas and methods we use
in the practical reading of literature.
Not to the meaning of the literature
but to the theories that reveal what
literature can mean.

Marxist Criticism

The Upper Class and The Working

Class
The upper class maintains their control over the
working class by forcing their ideology on them. The
upper class uses what Marx had called the base or in
other word, the means of production to control the
human ideologies or superstructure to maintain the
compliant attitude of the working class.
Coketown: ..as the members of eighteen religious
persuasions had done - they made it a pious warehouse of
red brick..(page 34)

http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=12068

The Industrial Revolution

(1820-1849)
The Industrial Revolution had contributed the transition from hand
production methods to machines (manufacturing processes) and this
included the rise of the factory system. Most of the factories in
Coketown are built by the upper class where the working class is forced
to work in the factories to earn their pay.
Coketown is described by Dickens as: It was a town of red brick, or
of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had
allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and
black like the painted face of a savage. (page 33)
The workers faces are dirty due to the ashes and smokes released by
the factories there.
It illustrates the unfairness of the Poor Law Amendment Act and the
working conditions at the factories.
This also indicates the lack of adequate facilities that are needed to
create a conductive working environment.
The workers, as described by Dickens: ...inhabited by people equally
like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the
same sound upon the same payments, to do the same work, and to
whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every
year the counterpart of the last and the next. (page 33)

The Friction Between The Rich and

The Poor
Dickens had express his criticism on the way the
economic system during that time segregates the rich
and the poor. He, as a moralist writer, felt that more
prosperous members of the society should be helping
those who are less fortunate.
As Dickens illustrates: Utilitarian economists, skeletons
of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and
used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dogs-eared
creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in
them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the
fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in
need of ornament... (page 209)

Feminist Criticism

Woman as Incapable Individual

This is manifested through Cecilia Jupes character.
In the first chapter, she is portrayed as someone who
is incapable in defining a horse to suit Mr Gradgrinds
philosophy of facts. Conversely, the young man named
Bitzer gave Mr Gradgrind a factual definition which
pleases Mr Gradgrind.
Bounderby views Cecilia Jupe as bad influence to Mr
Gradgrinds children, Louisa and Tom when Mr
Gradgrind caught them red handed watching the
circus performing through a peephole.
Fearing that Cecilia Jupe will be a threat to Mr
Gradgrinds philosophy of facts, she faces the
consequences of being expelled from the school.

Men are The Decision Maker

This is evident as Mr Gradgrind determines that his home,
Stoneledge to have the fact-heavy tone.
Mrs Gradgrind is too complacent to argue with her husband
over his mechanistic ways.
Also, when Mr Gradgrind made the decision to marry off
Louisa to Bounderbay, Louisa dutifully obeys to her
fathers request just to please her father.
In addition, Mr Gradgrind thinks that the marriage is a
practical one as he cites some statistics on the relative
ages of husbands and wives to show that a young wife and
an older husband can sustain a happy marriage.
Mr Gradgrind decides on his daughters life without giving
any thoughts to her feelings.

Views on Women
During the Victorian Era, women belong to the domestic sphere which
require them to provide for the husband and raise the children.
The author is seen to have stereotype Mrs Gradgrinds character in
this novel to fulfill the womens role at that time. Women at that time
however, are given access to education just like Cecilia and Louisa who
both attend Mr Gradgrinds school.
Besides that, it expected from woman in that era to practice
mannerism and etiquette. Again, the author is stereotyping the way a
woman carrying herself in public through Cecilias and Rachels
character both the characters are viewed as feminine and polite.
This is depict through Cecilias act of always curtseying and Rachel who
embodies the qualities that make home a happy place .

http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the19th-century

Biographical
Criticism

InHard Times(1854), he skillfully

combined many literary techniques to
produce a great novel of social protest.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/h/hard-times/charles-dickensbiography

Charles Dickens Childhood

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born 7 February 1812 in
Portsmouth, England. He was the second child of John and
Elizabeth Hoffman Dickens. His parents went on to have five
more children to join Charles and his elder sister, Fanny, two of
whom died in infancy.
The Dickens family was on shaky financial ground from the
beginning. John Dickens did not have a particularly good head
for numbers or finance, which was rather unfortunate, since he
worked as a clerk in the Naval Pay Office. (He also dabbled in
journalism, which influenced his young son but failed to bring
the family much income.) The family moved frequently. By 1823,
things had gotten bad enough that Dickens's parents were
forced to withdraw him from school because they could no
longer pay the fees.

 The following year, 1824, was a nightmare for the whole

Dickens family. On 9 February, two days after his twelfth
birthday, Charles was sent to work at Warren's Blacking
Factory, a London operation that made the polish for
boots. That same month, John Dickens was sentenced to
Marshalsea Prison for his failure to repay a debt. Though
young Charles tried desperately to raise the money to keep
his father out of jail, on 23 February John Dickens
reported to prison. The entire family with the exception
of Charles, who was still working at the factory, and his
older sister Fanny moved in to John's prison cell.

http://www.shmoop.com/charles-dickens/childhood.html

 At a certain part of Dickens life, he can be portrayed

as Stephen Blackpool. In the story, Blackpool could
not divorce his wife because the procedure needs a
lot of money just to get divorce(where he needs to
pay the Parliament to pass a law that to let him
divorce his wife and pay again to remarry), so he
decides against it and bear with his alcoholic wife.
This can be related to Dickens life on the part where
his father was sentenced to jail because of the
failure to pay debts. He tried to earn as much money
as he can to keep his father out of jail but he failed
and his father is finally jailed.

 In 1828, when he was sixteen, Dickens got his first

gig as a professional writer, working as a freelance
reporter covering the courts. His exposure to the
legal system and to the disproportionate number of
poor people who became embroiled in it later helped
inform novels likeBleak House.
He also shows his knowledge in the legal system
through some part of this story when he described
the difficult process of getting a divorce for
Blackpool (because he is also a factory worker) and
the easy process of the same matter in when
Bounderby divorces Louisa, just because he has what
it needs for the law to be legalized, which is money.

http://www.shmoop.com/charles-dickens/early-writing.html

 In the story, Sissy Jupe is abandoned by his father,

who is one of the clowns, when the circus, Sleary,
stops by at Coketown. At that time, which is during
the Industrial Revolution era, many children was
abandoned to either orphanages or workhouses.
Dickens lived in that era, which resulted to him
including the matter as well in his writings, including
Hard Times. Sissy Jupe is one of those pitiful
children, which may be the reason Dickens put on the
happy ending to her life, unlike other characters.

http://www.shmoop.com/charles-dickens/pupularity-later-in-life.html

Thank
you