Stephen Blackpool, the power-loom weaver is an important character in terms of highlighting Dickens’ presentation of the poor. Everything about Stephen is important and Dickens included very clever details – such as his name. Stephen is the name of the first ever Martyr and Blackpool suggests dirt and darkness as it was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Poor Stephen Blackpool’s death is an excellent example of ‘lives being ruined’ by the harsh society in which “Hard Times” is set.
Everything leading up to his eventual death stems from the harsh and difficult life a lot of ‘hands’ must have undergone. He was in an unhappy marriage, which unlike Bounderby, he was stuck with, due to the expensive divorce laws and social ostracizing, more or less exiled for speaking out against the Trade Unions and accused of theft before finally falling to his death from one of the many abandoned mine shafts in the country. It is fair to come to the conclusion that his Stephen’s death is a direct result of the harsh society Dickens chose to present. Stephen's life was full of ‘dire uniformity’ and he was forced to live an unhappy life. ‘Hands’ were not respected or treated well – at the time of “Hard Times” being published. Working hours were anything from 10-16 hours a day in unsafe and dirty conditions. Rachel’s sister is talked of briefly and it can be understood that she died as a child due to faulty unsafe factory machinery. Dickens however kept this story subtle as this storyline, along with loveless marriages and theft would have been very controversial and some households probably retained some details from being read to younger listeners. To support the idea that most middle class people were unaware of how the ‘Hands’ lived, Louisa states that she imagined them to be living like ‘ants’. For poor Stephen Blackpool, the ‘truest lad’, Victorian society was definitely too harsh.
Tom Gradgrind, the ‘Whelp’ moves away from being the disobedient cub, which the nickname suggests to being a thief. A direct and forceful result of his fathers schooling, Utilitarianism and the society Dickens presents. Dickens forewarns us about the events to come, in book one when he suggests to Louisa that he well ‘recompense’ himself for his terrible childless childhood.
The reading of “Hard Times” made me pity Mr. Gradgrind who, in my opinion is a realistic character. Despite him being directly responsible for ruining Louisa, Tom and Mrs. Gradgrind’s lives, he does appear to realize that his system of training has been wrong and that he has ‘not understood Louisa properly’. He also admits that his system may have been slightly ‘perverted’. This is all brought home to Gradgrind via his daughter fleeing her husband and his son robbing a bank. Bounderby really has a hard time from those Gradgrind children! By the end of the Novel, he is unliked by his former friends – the national dustmen, and has been shamed by his son. I believed Mr. Gradgrind is to be pitied yet appreciated for his change in opinions.
Both Rachel and Mrs. Sparsit seem to be left to live out monotonous lives. Dickens’ presentation of them would appear that there is not much hope for anyone living in the Victorian Era. However, as I will explain later there are exceptions.
I feel that Dickens’ portrayal of Louisa’s life is the most affected and afflicted. Not only did she have the flowers of her childhood annihilated by the Gradgrind system, she was brought up by her parents in a loveless marriage. Dickens’ emphasis on loveless marriages in very important and poignant as Dickens marriage was an unhappy one from which he separated. It could be these events in his personal life, which spurred him to portray marriage so harshly in the majority of cases. Louisa was also betrayed, hurt and used by the brother whom she adored and would have done anything for. She was married off to the ‘blusterous’ Bounderby in an unequally matched marriage, and sadly for Louisa, the image of what her life could have been like is shown to her in her younger sister Jane. Sadly for Louisa, separation and divorce from Bounderby meant that she would never remarry or have children – which she longed for.
The only happy ending in the book regards Sissy Jupe and the Circus people whom all marry and have very happy loving marriages. They chose not to live by Utilitarianism, but the philosophy the ‘people muth be amuthed…they can’t alwayth be a working, nor yet they can’t alwayth be a learning….make the beth of uth thquire, not the wurth’.
The harsh society, which Dickens presents, is governed by Facts, Systems, Training and Utilitarianism. Louisa Gradgrind is a prime-surviving example (as well as Bitzer) of what this society produced and Dickens offered it as a warning. As said before, it is doubtful that all parts of it would have been read in middle class homes, as sadly, this is the way in which most children were raised.
Charles Dickens was ahead of his time. In is attempt to satirize the mechanization of the Victorian soul, he tried to show where people were going wrong and what they could do about it. Despite the Victorian era being the real start of philanthropy, the poor still had a terrible time and Dickens, through Stephen Blackpool tried to bring peoples attention to this. There were others who attempted to emphasize the plight of the poor – Thomas Hood for example wrote a very good and emotional poem entitled ‘ The Song of the Shirt’. Charles Dickens was known to be an admirer of his work. Unfortunately, it was not until about twenty years after the publication of “Hard Times” that working hours were reduced and Trade Unions had greater strength
I do agree with the idea that we are left with a sense of loss, and a sense of ruined lived by the society Dickens presents. Something else that I do feel is how far people born into this society were able to change the society in which they lived. Sadly I have come to the conclusion that in “Hard Times”, Dickens thought of it as extremely hard, if not impossible.
Stacey Meaney
20/03/03
word count - 1278
