Exploring some of the ways in which Dickens's Attitudes to Education are presented in the early Chapters of Hard Times

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Exploring some of the ways in which Dickens’s Attitudes to Education are presented in the early Chapters of Hard Times

In Charles Dickens’s industrial novel ‘Hard Times’ written in 1854, we see various attitudes towards the topic of ‘education’ from several different characters in the early chapters of the novel.  In this essay, I am going to explore Dickens’s attitudes towards education, compared to those in the novel, and how they are presented in these chapters.

In the first chapter, Dickens seems to give an ‘over the top’ description of Mr. Gradgrind, using repetative, monotonous, mimetic language, through which he shows us that Mr. Gradgrind’s attitude towards education is purely based on facts.  This can be seen at the beginning of the first chapter when Mr. Gradgrind says, “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts.  Facts alone are wanted in life… Stick to Facts, sir!”  One can see facts are important to Mr. Gradgrind as the word ‘Facts’ has a capital letter most of the time, no matter where it is in a sentence.  However, Dickens does not describe Mr. Gradgrind using factual language.  He uses imaginative and descriptive language involving negative words.  He says, “…his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, - all helped the emphasis.”  The negative words in this sentence such as ‘stubborn’ and ‘unaccommodating’ suggests that Dickens does not like Mr. Gradgrind’s attitude towards education and has a totally different opinion.  When Sissy Jupe is unable to describe a horse, Mr. Gradgrind embarrasses her because her fathers a horsebreaker.  When Bitzer is asked the same question he comes out with a whole list of facts on horses and impresses Mr. Gradgrind.  Readers may feel some sympathy for Sissy as she is put under pressure and she may be new to ‘facts’.  However, some may get the impression that Sissy is not as intelligent as Bitzer as he produces facts as if he’s a huge textbook.  I feel that Dickens is not ‘mocking’ Mr. Gradgrind’s approach to education, but he is implying that he is against his technique of teaching and feels he could improve it.

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The inspector is presented in a very different manner compared to Mr. Gradgrind.  We are not even told his name.  We know him as the “third gentleman” and that he’s a government officer.  On the first line of the paragraph, we are told that he’s a “mighty man, and Dickens emphasises this point with the use of positive and hard-hitting words.  I think he’s indicating the ‘third gentleman’ is not mighty in a physical manner, but mighty in character and power.  He can do virtually anything he wants to.  If he wants to shut down a school then he will. ...

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