Louisa Gradgrind has been shaped by the laws of fact since the day she was born. She was also surrounded by people who were shaped the same way for the majority of her life. She could not change, even if she wanted to, because she did not know there was any other way to be. The same as if a man was blind from birth in a town of blind people would not long for sight, Louisa does not long to be brought up a different way. That is until she is introduced to people whose minds are on the outside of this prison of fact. How did those people influence Louisa? By showering her in a light she had never seen before, they made her realize what she had been missing all along. Louisa is not as fortunate as Sissy and does not share her good emotional…
women, and the socia1 structure at that time in Hard Times which in turn gives us a c1ear-cut idea of Victorian times .Char1es Dickens was very ski11fu1 and ambitious for his work. SOCIETY AND FAMILY IN HARD TIMES Hard Times is a description of industria1 society in Victorian Age. In this text, the impu1se to dissociate the fami1y and society is seen much powerfu1 than the impu1se to connect it. Dickens’s specia1 use of the fami1y-society metaphor depicts it c1ear1y. He gives importance to…
starting point of the novel Dickens acquaints us with the utilitarian state of mind. Mr. Thomas Gradgrind is one of the principle characters in the book.…
Through the strict utilitarian style championed by Thomas Gradgrind and taught by M’Choakumchild to the children of Coketown, he attempts to show the faults of an educational system devoid of creative development, one in which the imagination is stifled while rote memorization of facts and figures becomes the primary method of education. We see the affects of this rigid system manifest throughout the novel, in the emotionally detached and robotic Bitzer, the unscrupulous and immoral actions of…
passion Jane had when wanting to be heard. “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens presents the general situation in which the lives of people are restricted. In such situation, people cannot have a free and spontaneous growth of their natural feelings and sentiments. It portrays the mechanization of people’s lives. It shows how industrialism led to slavery and “pre-chosen” routines. The educational system in the Victorian age was primarily based on facts, figures, and calculations. According to…
in the school system. Where, the basic principle of Thomas Gradgrind‟s educational system is only facts and nothing else that might encourage the development of the children‟s imagination and creativity. Dickens chooses to explain Gradgrind‟s, the central character, theoretical proceedings. He disapprovingly personifies the utilitarian philosophy through conveying the ideals and evils, good and bad of the utilitarianist teacher. In this sense, Kevin Manton, politician and historian from the…
It can clearly be seen in each of these two stories that the children were not allowed to think freely. The children were not allowed to develop their own opinion, but only the opinion that the teacher gives them. For example, Gradgrind asked his students if they should paper a room with representations of horses, this is what he said when some of the students said that they would, “you must paper it, whether you like it or not. Don’t tell us you wouldn’t paper, it…,” (Page 1002.) This quote…
clown whom abandons her in Coketown is taken in by Thomas Gradgrind. Thomas is friends with Josiah and also heavily adores the strict education system. Tom and Louisa are both "given" to Bounderby, Tom as a type of servant and Louisa as his wife. Stephen Blackpool, a worker in Bounderby 's factory is a good, descent man who 's wife is now a crazy alcoholic. Blackpool is in love with another worker named Rachael. But due to the time period he cannot get divorced without a pass from Parliament.…
Personally, the most interesting of all the presented issues was that of the relationship between happiness and success. Happiness most commonly comes from the quality of the relationships we have with the people around us. In an ideal world, all people would be happy. In a commonly-perceived world, rich people are happy because they’re successful. This commonly-perceived idea is challenged as Tom Gradgrind, in the most politically successful part of his career exclaims to his daughter, “I am an…
The culture that Dicken’s used to express these virtues was an industrial city in England amongst the mid-nineteenth century. Dicken’s uses this cultural setting, social interactions, and environmental changes to show how his characters make moral decisions, based on these foundations, thought-out their individual circumstances. We encounter the loyalty/ betrayal foundation early in the book when Mr. Gradgrind is introduced, along with his moral ideas that, “all things [are] regulated and…