Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Name: Mª Ángeles Martínez López

HARD TIMES BY CHARLES DICKENS - STUDY QUESTIONS 

 WORKSHEET 1 BOOK THE FIRST – SOWING

1. Chapter 1: Why is everything at Thomas Gradgrind’s school described as “square”?

Maybe it suggests strictness and rigidity, only facts not feelings. He seems a machine.

2. In the 1st chapter comment on how:

∙ The setting accompanies the ideology transmitted: “the scene was plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom” (page 1). Only facts, there are no ornaments, feelings or imagination, monotonous, strict and simple.

∙ The physical attributes of Thomas Gradgrind accompany his personality: “square” “mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set”, “voice, which was inflexible, dry and dictatorial”, “hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie”

 ∙ Language accompanies meaning: Repetition of “the emphasis was helped by the speaker’s” as if he was a machine, monotonous, mechanical,  and always the same. Repetition of the words “facts” and “square”. Simple sentences:  “Now, what I want is facts”

 3. Explain the metaphorical effect of talking about the young students as “little vessels” (Ch1) or “little pitchers” (Ch2).

It suggests that the children are as objects they are empty of facts and must be fulfilled with them to be useful.

4. Chapter 3: Explain the title of this chapter, ‘A Loophole’.

Although Mr. Gradgrind had taught his children with only facts, there is a “loophole” (a fissure, an escape of knowledge) in their education, because they have curiosity and imagination.  Also can refer to the “hole” through the children was peering the circus.

5. Why is Gradgrind’s home called ‘Stone Lodge’? Comment upon the significance of Stone Lodge and how this place contributes to the characterization of Mr. Grangrind.

Because reflects Mr. Grandgrind character, without feelings, symmetrical (“square”), mechanical, without ornaments, strict.

6. Chapter 4: How do the physical attributes assigned to Mr. Bounderby complement his personality?

“with a stare and mechanical laugh”, “made out of a coarse material”, “a man with a …the Bully of humility” (pages 16-17).

He seems a  mechanical person, leaded by reason and facts, proud.

7. Chapter 5: Coketown acquires such importance in the novel that this place is even described as if it were a character in itself (see for instance, the beginning of chapter 5). What does Coketown symbolize? What is it like? And how is it described?

Coketown symbolizes the real industrial towns of England, Industrialism. It is mechanical, monotonous (all buildings and people are the same), dirty, sad, polluted, unnatural, noisy.

8. In which way do Mr Gradgrind’s children resemble the Coketown working-people?

They have been educated in a monotonous, based on fact way, banned from imagination and creativity.

9. Chapter 6: Notice the positive portrayal of the circus people in chapters 5 and 6. In which way do the characterization of Sleary and the other circus characters contrast the description that the narrator offers of Mr. Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby?

Is a world of fancy and imagination in contrast with the mechanical and monotonous world of fact and reason. They are described with imperfections; they are real, magical, and sentimental.

10. Explain, in your own words, Mr Sleary’s philosophy, as described by the end of chapter 6.

The life is not only facts and rules; there must be also time to entertainment, amusement and imagination.

11. Chapter 10: Chapter 10 introduces the character of Stephen Blackpool in the second paragraph, by means of a very long, grammatically complex sentence. What is the effect of introducing this character in such a way? What does this style indicate about Stephen and his living conditions?

To emphasize how hard is his life and his living conditions.

12. What is the implication of using the metonymy “the Hands” to refer to the working-class community of Coketown?

They lose their humanity; they are like machines used to work.

13. Chapter 11: What is the effect of describing the factories in Coketown as “Fairy Palaces”?

Is irony, to emphasize how awful is the life in factories. Contrast the beauty and magical of fairy palaces with the mechanical, monotonous, dirty life in factories.

14. Chapter 16: In this chapter, Dickens describes the act of courting as a “manufacturing” exchange of gifts. What is the effect of such a description and how that is emphasize Dickens’s attack on Utilitarism?

In this way he is treating marriage and home life in a process of logic and mechanization. There are no feelings, so people are like machines guided by logic and facts. Utilitarism transform people in machines.

WORKSHEET 2-BOOK THE SECOND. REAPING

 1. Chapter 1: Notice how Dickens masterfully transforms in this chapter the sun from traditionally being a symbol of rebirth and warmth in literature into a symbol of death and negativity.

Page 134 “The streets were…more sane.” Page 135 “Sun-blinds...fierce heat” “frying street.” Page 149 “when the sun began to sink…up to the sky”.

Sun is harmful, is frying the city, punishing it, “frying” it. Is like hell.

2. What is the effect of describing in chapter 1 Coketown as “a dense formless jumble”?

The effect is to criticise urban life as a formless jumble of persons, classes and ideas. A “muddle” as Stephen said.

3. In this chapter, the narrator describes the Bank building almost in identical terms to the way he described Mr Bounderby’s house in Chapter 11. What is the implication of this?

The city is mechanized; there is no imagination or creativity. There is no separation between work life and home (personal life), no human life. There is a destruction of humanity.

4. Chapter 4: Why do you think Dickens offers such a critical portrayal of Slackbridge? What does he seem to be saying in his description of the labour organizers and the working-class assembly (The United Aggregate Tribunal)?

Slackbridge: caricature. He is criticising the leaders of working-class unions. They only worried about themselves although they said to defend the rights of all the workers. They used their oratory to manipulate all the workers.

5. Why do you think Stephen refuses to stay out of the union, the United Aggregate Tribunal?