LITERARY STUDIES

This excerpt is extracted/ taken from the realist moralist novel entitled Hard Times written by English author Charles Dickens in 1854, Book the First, Sowing, Chapter 1: “The One Thing Needful”, Chapter 2: “Murdering the Innocents”, and Chapter 5: “The Keynote”. The novel criticizes the societal impact of utilitarianism and industrialization on the middle class individuals.

The excerpt from chapter 1 “The One thing Needful” refers to fact as the only thing needful in life. The speaker, Mr Gradgrind, explains in the excerpt that he only cares about fact as the only thing that matters in life and which should be taught to the children in his school. Mr Gradgrind only sees human beings as reasoning creatures and is careless about their humane side, as he says: “You can only form the minds of reasoning animals  upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them”. The "reasoning animals" is an expression that is used by Mr Gradgrind to refer to the children in his school. The school is described as boring and monotonous which shows that there is no diversity and no freedom yet all the children are subjected to his philosophy of fact. They are compared to vessels that are ready to be filled with fact, which is a reference to the violence of industrialization, factories, and technology.  The children are depicted as empty entities that are there to be filled and manipulated by fact.

The second excerpt entitled “ Murdering the Innocents” shows the terms in which Mr Gradgrind mentally introduces himself to his surroundings. He introduces himself with authority and assertiveness stating that he is a “man of realities” only. Yet, his introduction seems to be entirely based on calculation. Mr Gradgrind sees himself as a matter of arithmetics, and defines other individuals based on their weight and measures instead of their personalities. Through his description, Mr Gradgrind turns out to be a self-centred, strict, and senseless person.

Mr Gradgrind, by imposing his strict rules, and considering the children as pitchers to be filled by fact and rational thinking, is compared to a weapon that is ready to bomb the children and “prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge”. He thus prevents them from fancy, and kills their innocence referring back to the title of the chapter which is “Murdering the innocents”. Mr Gradgrind is described as a machine because of his mechanical and rational personality. Mr Gradgrind’s behavior towards the little girl Sissy Jupe in the novel was traumatizing to her as she was unable to provide the requested definition of a horse. Yet his satisfaction with Bitzer’s definition shows that his only interest is calculation and scientific definition and nothing else.

The third excerpt is extracted from chapter 5 entitled “The Keynote”. This latter discusses the city of Coketown where the events of the novel happen. It is a city that influenced by industrialization,  and is described by the narrator as “a triumph of fact”. It has a dark and monotonous atmosphere as a result of its pollution. The city is described as having unnatural colours of red and black as results of ashes, and “ill-smelling dye” in the river to emphasize the scary and grotesque aspect of the city. The lifestyle of the city is trapped in an unending routine which is described in the movements of the machines and behaviours of its inhabitants. Coketown seems to be a dystopia by its lifestyle and its look.

The place settings that are mentioned in the excerpt are Coketown, where the industrialization is most significant (and which is also a fictional city), and Mr Gradgrind’s school, where he addresses the children and their teacher to instruct them to deal with only fact and nothing else. The excerpts are told in mixed voices. The first excerpt opens with the voice of Mr Grandgrind who speaks of his own view of the philosophy of fact. So in the beginning of the narrative, the situation is depicted from the perspective of Mr Gradgrind who shows his fascination with rationality. As the narrative develops the narration / point of view switches from Gradngrind’s voice (first person, peripheral) to the narrator’s voice (third person) who shows a totally different perspective. While Mr Grandgrind’s calls for Fact, the narrator’s voice seems to disagree with such a philosophy and thinks that it is totalitarian and a crime committed towards the children that are subjected to it. The point of view here is third person, omniscient.  

The three excerpts show the themes of fact, violence as a result of industrialization, and to a certain extent, dehumanism and self-centeredness. The novel is a depiction of the struggles of the middle classes during the Victorian period, especially during the age of economic prosperity. The first and second excerpts relate industrialization and rationalism to violence and dehumanism in the character and philosophy of Mr Gradgrind. As the latter instructs the teachers in his school to focus only on fact, he decides to sweep away everything related to the childhood innocence and memories of the pupils in his school. His character is also presented a mechanical and senseless, yet, also ready to firebomb the children which emphasizes the violence of his character.

The plot of the novel begins in the monotonous vault of the schoolroom where fact is presented as a way to murder innocence rather than a form of knowledge that is meant to serve human beings as the original goal of the enlightenment. The moment fact becomes a weapon is a conflict because it raises the narrative to a certain number of complications. The narrative becomes more complicated as the events develop in the life of Sissy Jupe, the main protagonist in the novel, who is subjected to Mr Gradgrind’s philosophy of fact (who is presented as an antagonist as he hurts the children’s innocence).

The events become more complicated as explorations of sub-plots are presented in the narrative in the lives of the Hands led by Stephen who asks for the workers’ rights and is considered as a greedy ungrateful by his employer Mr Bounderby. The novel reaches a climax when the two social classes meet, that is the upper class represented in Louisa, Mr Gradgrind’s daughter, and Stephen, representing the working class. Ampng the working class, Louisa discovers feelings, and emotion, then realizes that her marriage was a total failure because of her father’s philosophy of fact. She then realizes that her entire life was destroyed, while her brother Tom turns into a criminal who robs the bank and escapes leaving someone to take the blame for him. The events of the novel resolve as Mr Gradgrind faces his daughter’s deceit and blame and realizes that his philosophy in life was wrong. The resolution of the novel is further emphasized by the happiness of Sissy Jupe and the working class individuals who show that even without rationality and without wealth, they could be happy and emotional.

The characters in these excerpts are Mr Grandgrind, Mr Bounderby,  and Sissy Jupe as main characters. The school master and Bitzer are secondary characters. Mr Gradgrind is depicted as a senseless, self-regarding, and strict person who only believes in calculations and arithmetics, to the extent that he disregards the human side of every human being. He is an advocate of the utilitarian principle which he teaches to his children. He is flat during most of the novel, until he reaches the end of the novel to become a round character. He stands for one fixed philosophy which is the ideology of fact, yet at the end he changes his definition of life and realizes that his beliefs in life were wrong. This character was categorized both as protagonist and antagonist. The novel does not have one protagonist but a group of protagonists who share the same struggle in life which is reflected in the title "Hard Times". Among all the characters, Mr Gradgrind is the most prominent with his philosophy of fact. He seems a victim of this philosophy in his conviction with its truthfulness and uniqueness. Yet, his representation as a canon that is ready to blow the children and kill their innocence, he is an antagonist who contributes in raising senseless and selfish adults.

Sissy Jupe is the representation of fancy, or imagination and creativity in the novel. She is described as shy and polite. She loses her father who is put in jail and is thus taken by Mr Gradgrind who decides to raise her with his children. In his household, Sissy Jupe is the only one who has feelings and is distinguished by her behaviours and interests,  that influence his younger daughter at the end. Sissy Jupe is a protagonist, she is round because she shows real-life characteristics in her reactions to Mr Grandgrind at school and her belief in life and hope.

The text includes a number of literary devices among which a hyperbole in “Impreial Gallons of fact poured into them until they were full to the brim”, which means huge amount of rational thinking to be imposed on the children. There is a simile in the line “the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness” to mean that the movements of the steam-engine were sad and unending as they had to move continuously.

The text has a dark and depressing and authoritarian atmosphere. The author describes a dystopian life in the fictional city of Coketown where children have no freedom of learning to be humanist, rather they are under the obligation of leaving their childhood behind. The city also has a traumatizing aspect on the unconscious inhabitants who fit within its routine and accept to live in its polluted atmosphere, unaware that their lives are the ones that are polluted. The tone is critical and angry, it shows disapproval in his choice of references and allusions while decscribing Coketown and the school of Mr Gradgrind. The author also shows hostile ty to industrialization and particularly to the idea of child labor which is depicted in his description of Mr Gradgrind as a cannon and a weapon.