How To Write A Christmas Carol

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!’
Mr Thomas Gradgrind’s speech, the opening paragraph to Hard Times, is probably as famous as the novel itself. Published in 1854, Hard Times tells the story of a fictional Northern industrial town by the name of Coketown, and particularly of the Gradgrind family. Thomas Gradgrind brings up his children according to the strict precepts of
The reason why I decided to read Hard Times for the Classics Circuit Duelling Authors tour is not because I’m #teamdickens rather than #teamausten, but because next month I’m going to see a stage adaptation of this novel by the same theatre company who did the production of A Christmas Carol I raved about last December. Hard Times will be performed at an old mill and will no doubt draw on Manchester’s industrial history. As I’m sure you can imagine, to say that I’m excited is an
I think some of the things that make him such a vivid, engaging writer also work against him, and one of them is his tendency to illustrate his points through ethical black and whites. The same is true of the characterisation in Hard Times: the characters are certainly memorable, but they resemble types or caricatures more than real human beings. Furthermore, his women are all very stereotypically Victorian – angelic and sacrificing. He’s certainly no Wilkie Collins in that regard. Still, I have to say that the characterisation issues bothered me a lot less in Dickens than it probably would in any other author, which is a testament to how well he does what he sets out to