Early Victorian: Hard Times

X that didactic in writing: He uses literary devices to convey his message in different layerings.


 1) Select at least two of the following depictions (you can look at all four if you wish to) and ascertain how Dickens uses literary devices and his imaginative powers to convey his message. What is his message, and why does he convey it in the way he does? 

a) Depictions of Gradgrind and his home: Book 1, Chapter 3

Dickens introduces so much colour to describe Gradgrind's worldview. Proving exactly how imagination is essential in the life of a child. Using the form of the square, the external sphere: reflects his encompassing philosophy which leaks out to all aspects of life. Stone lodge: Hard facts man. Personalities are defined through utilitarian philosophy and indoctrination.

Gradgrind: Dickens use very visceral imagery: metaphor/personification; was a large blackboard with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it.; a children’s nightmare. These languages permeates the hyperbolic/comical language he wants to attack, and he doesn't use comic exaggeration as much for the characters Dickens favours.

Described as sterile and lack of humanistic emotion, eminently practical/pragmatic diction used.

HOUSE: Clearly, meticulously described & detailed for its face-value. Very utilitarian, 

Message being: satire on the principles of the industrial and capitalist Victorian era; a focused zoom into the debilitating expectations of the education system

WHY: Practical hook for readers who can easily relate to the time and circumstances.

b) Depictions of Bounderby: Book 1, Chapter 4

He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.

DEPICTION: caricaturised and forcefully comical. Hyperbole, rough tactile and auditory imagery. A loud tooter. Spitting “facts” that aid him in exploitation, giving him an image that is blown out of proportion. 

MESSAGE: to make us painfully aware of the pompous peeps in power by stabbing our eyes with an Exaggeration of a privileged puffed-up boast.

WHY DEPICTED LIKE THAT: wants a full frontal/comical satire that shows all the vices of the ruling capitalists and makes them the butt of the joke.

He invents false narratives, his windiness is his voice. He is knowingly deceptive, aware of all his flaws but lives in a web of lies. He's a cartoon character, which is fitting because he is living in a fictitious life, to continue the exploitation of the poor. He's presenting his story as if it were fact, and Dickens writes this to provoke thought: what if the so-called facts were just an invention, a social construct?

c) Depictions of Coketown: Book 1, Chapter 5

because of the sad and hard times, catalyst of industry proved to be catastrophic for lives of many, Matthew effect. Less than conducive living environment, very bald disregard for the welfare of the public. Choked in darkness, both literally and metaphorically, a town rolling in the illness and birth pains of the Enforcement of Pareto’s theorem.

d) Depictions of Stephen Blackpool: Book 1, Chapter 10

the ideal representative of the Hands, the exploited, underprivileged and honest citizen “exemplar of pure society”

2) What roles do women play in the novel? Why do some female characters flourish and others wither? What is Dickens saying about the nature, expectations and position of women in Victorian society, and how does this compare to how women in the society you live in are regarded? 

Ophelia: Women are still very much defined by their relationships to man. Stigmatized through social expectations, subservient to men, very much a patriarchal standpoint in regard to biology.

3) Parents have a large influence on their children in this novel. Consider one or two parent-child relationships in this novel and discuss the theme of bringing up children. What are effective and/or non-effective parenting strategies? 

Authoritarian, Gradgrind_ authoritative, : warping of natural inclinations, pruned and cut, a bonsai tree.

permissive, Bounderby/ Pegler: Good growth, achieved boastful dream

Sissy’s dad: uninvolved, lack of paternal emotional fulfilment

Why are some strategies effective and others non-effective?  

some prescribe thoughts for children, stamping out potential sparks for growth.

4) What are your thoughts on the Gradgrindian method of teaching and learning? Have you experienced elements of it in your education? If so, what was its impact?    

ROTE LEARNING: memorizing, bulimia, toxic caste system institutionalising and sterilizing education.

Individual Reflection for the Reflective Journal

1) Take a moment to reflect on an aspect from the novel that really stood out for you. What was it? Why did it feel important to you?