Hard Times Essay Research Paper Times That

Hard Times Essay, Research Paper

Times That Truly Were Hard

When we think of hard times in today’s world, our thoughts might consist of the number of days before we get paid, an argument with our spouse, or simply that our car is not operating so great these days. Most people today can not begin to imagine what hard times were like during the Industrial Revolution. In nineteenth century England, hard times to the factory workers may have consisted of watching one’s nine-year-old child tied to a machine in the mill for fourteen hours a day. It is no wonder why the writers of this period protested society through the voices of their writings. One of the greatest of these writers was Charles Dickens, who made his voice of protest through a literary masterpiece known as Hard Times. There are many aspects of Hard Times, and Dickens manages to capture what life was like for all of the social classes of his day through each individual character with his protests against the horrible ways in which people were treating one another in the times that truly were hard.

Dickens put a great deal of thought and research into all of his works, just as he did in Hard Times. As one writer states, “He visited Preston to get material for the industrial and trade-union aspects of the novel; a few weeks latter he began to collect circus slang” (Collins 29). He latter obtained the Educational Board’s series of questions for the examination of teachers in schools. On April 1, 1854, Hard Times appeared in a weekly journal, Household Words, which Dickens edited.

Some people believe that Dickens “was determined to create a means where he could communicate his ideas on social reform so in 1850 he began editing Household Words” (Ford 16). One author states that “by 1851 the twenty-four page Household Words was selling 40,000 copies a week” (Gray 2). The weekly journal included articles on politics, science and history. To increase the number of people willing to buy Household Words, it also contained short stories and humorous pieces. Dickens also used the journal to serialize novels that were concerned with social issues such as Hard Times.

The scene is a factory driven English town known as Coketown. The novel begins in a classroom where we meet Mr. Gradgrind, a wealthy parliament member, to whom the school belongs. It is believed that “Dickens’s first purpose was to establish the dominion of Fact and of its high priest, Mr. Gradgrind…. He is to be the representative of a theory. It is therefore appropriate that he should first appear in his own school impressing his theories upon the rising generation, who will show the effect of his teaching as the story develops” (Tillotson 43). Mr. Gradgrind’s beliefs on education are one and the same as his beliefs on life. Everything must be of fact. In his view, there is no room for fantasies or feelings. As one author so accurately puts it, “The smoke drifts into the classrooms at Gradgrind Day School and fogs the imagination of its students” (Sanders 3). The children are starving for anything other than facts. We soon see that they will go to great lengths to get a dab of fantasy in their lives.

One author states that, “the young Gradgrinds have been brought up on Facts, but when we first meet them they are contriving to satisfy their starving Fantasy by peeping through a hole in a circus tent” (Tillotson 45). Mr. Gradgrind discovers his children peeping though the hole to get a look at the circus people, and is horrified at his discovery. He cannot grasp their reasons of looking for more. He must feel that they have it all, an education filled with facts. He does not know that with a mind of facts alone, one may as well be a machine. In this part of the novel we see that Dickens is not only protesting the education system of the time, but also striving for individualism. A person is not a class or a machine, but rather an individual with thoughts and feelings belonging to no one else but that person.

We are soon introduced to a group of individuals on the bottom of the social classes. This group of people knows only fantasy, and knows nothing about facts. They are the circus people, and their main purpose is to bring joy into other peoples lives. When a young circus girl’s father abandons her, Mr. Gradgrind takes her in so that she can be properly educated. Sissy Jupe is a warm and loving individual who can not accept a life of facts alone. She has a huge impact in the lives of the Gradgrinds. One author agrees by saying that Mr. Gradgrind “is redeemable, and the course of the novel will show that he will be redeemed by Sissy. He fails to educate her head, but she succeeds in educating his heart” (Tillotson 46). Dickens protests the treatments of the circus people. Much can be learned from people such as them. What he was trying to say is to put love and happiness first, and everything else will fall into place. Sissy grows up to have a family and a happy life, where as Louisa ends up in a loveless and unhappy marriage because she does not know how to dream of anything else.

Josiah Bounderby is in the same middle class as the Gradgrinds however, we soon discover that he is different than they turn out to be. Mr. Bounderby is a wealthy factory owner, and a supposed “self made man.” He goes on and on of how he has risen himself from the gutters to his present position. As he proclaims in the novel, “My