Navigate Introduction Criticism Further Reading Copyright Introduction Print PDF Cite Share Charles Dickens Hard Times for These Times The following entry presents criticism of Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854). See also Charles Dickens Short Story Criticism‚ A Christmas Carol Criticism‚ A Tale of Two Cities Criticism‚ Little Dorrit Criticism‚ and Our Mutual Friend Criticism. INTRODUCTION Perhaps the least-known of all Dickens’s novels‚ Hard
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passion aglow? Or is the idea to connect Louisa with a more mystical scene of a wise woman‚ oracle‚ or shaman‚ looking into the village fire before she speaks some kind of primal truth to whoever is nearby? Turtle Soup‚ Venison‚ and a Gold Spoon Bounderby ’s old standby whenever he wants to talk smack about the
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two furthest poles of character in the novel are those of Josiah Bounderby and Stephen Blackpool. Although the two characters’ lives are very different‚ they seem strangely perpendicular. Josiah Bounderby thinks he is solely correct in his ideals‚ but is ignorant about those of others. Bounderby is a very self-righteous man‚ obsessed with talking of how he was born in a ditch and has risen to be the self-proclaimed "Josiah Bounderby of Coketown" that he has become. He has bound himself in
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Dickens and his structure Of Hard Times "On every page Hard Times manifests its identity as a polemical work‚ a critique of Mid-Victorian industrial society dominated by materialism‚ acquisitiveness‚ and ruthlessly competitive capitalist economics" (Lodge 86). The quotation above illustrates the basis for Hard Times. Charles Dickens presents in his novel a specific structure to expose the evils and abuses of the Victorian Era. Dickens’ use of plot and characterization relate directly
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known as Thomas Gradgrind‚ is responsible for the extermination of anything fanciful and integration of everything pertinent and factual into the young‚ pliable minds of Coketown’s children. The older characters in the book‚ and especially Mr. Bounderby‚ are examples of how years of leading a utilitarian life can mold someone into an arrogantly bland and ignorant individual‚ which I think is one of Dickens main points in the book. There is no doubt that a lifetime of frugal and pragmatic living
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WOMEN CHARACTERS IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF CHARLES DICKENS BY‚ PRIYANKA VILEEMA D. SOUZA I M.A. ENGLISH REG NO. 129626 CONTENTS PAGE NO. 1. CHAPTER I- Introduction 1-2 2. CHAPTER II- Women Characters in Oliver Twist 2-3 3. CHAPTER III- Women Characters in Hard Times 3-6 4. CHAPTER IV- Women Characters in Great Expectation 6-7 5. CHAPTER V- A Tale of Two Cities 7-9 6. CONCLUSION 9-10 7. WORK CITED
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social critiques. It is almost a satire in itself because of the use of humour and sentimental melodrama. The use of humour is apparent when Dickens describes Mr Bounderby: “A man made out of a coarse material‚ which seemed to have stretched to make so much of him”. He does this to show his opinion on the rising‚ greedy middle class‚ Mr. Bounderby is very large‚ which indicates greed‚ and very loud‚ which Dickens then mocks strongly. He also satirises Mrs. Sparsit with her description: “she was now‚ in
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considerations and which we normally take for granted in Dickens. Then‚ too‚ the novel is curiously skeletal. There are four separate plots‚ or at least four separate centres of interest: the re-education through suffering of Mr. Gradgrind‚ the exposure of Bounderby‚ the life and death of Stephen Blackpool‚ and the story of Sissy Jupe. There are present‚ in other words‚ all the potentialities of an expansive‚ discursive novel in the full Dickens manner. But they are not and could not be realised because of
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Analyse Dickens presentation of the conflict between fact and fancy in ‘Hard Times’ The novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens epitomises the social‚ political and economic values of Victorian England. Dickens attacks the conditions and exploitation of the workers by the factory owners‚ the social class divisions that favour dishonesty over honesty depending on the hierarchy of class status. He finds the utilitarian (fact) school of thought where facts and statistic’s are emphasised at the expense
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impulses. Dickens powerfully demonstrates the crisis that the educational institutions of this time had faced owing to madding fact - orientation. He has satirized the theories of political economists through exaggerated characters such as Mr. Bounderby‚ the self-made man motivated by greed‚ and Mr. Gradgrind‚ the schoolmaster who emphasizes facts and figures over all else. Encouraged by the Benthamite fact - craze the educationists took pains to reduce everything to statistical and measurable data
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