Louisa Gradgrind is and always was in a hopeless position, bought up with no creative thinking or free will to stop her advance down the path of facts which her father desires her to follow and being isolated from the rest of society she is unable to acquire friends or even acquaintances, and can only turn to Tom- her brother for advice and comfort, and they pull through the earlier years with only each other
Later in the story she is forced into a greatly unequal marriage with Josiah Bounderby. Whose unhealthy concern with Louisa creates a few raised eyebrows. But nevertheless she marries him and leads a life simply for the sake of leading it, with not much else mattering to her, save her brother
Setting
The backdrop for all this is the industrial town based on 18th century Preston, with plenty of houses packed side to side with families, drinking, smog, treachery, and gambling run strife, keeping the workers on the Business, with the buildings black and lighter colours blending into light, creating a very gothic scene, focusing on dullness and sadness
Coketown is the standard north English industrial town, with many a political and social figure being portrayed by one of its residents, built around the beliefs and ideas of influential utilitarians like Thomas Carlyle and Jeremy Bentham creating the ideas of the crowded work and homes, and the entire city is built around how a utilitarianism, machines and the few jobs which machines can not yet handle in need of jobs, and the wage for unskilled workers, creating the opportunity for the mill owners to push workers rights further down, creating the view that trade unions standing united can stop the utilitarians, but with many a corrupt trade union leader seeking personal profit from the workers.
In a way Coketown may well be a closed society, with travel only available to the higher classes and available any time they feel like it, however the working class labourer will most likely be forced to stay in Coketown until the end of his life, unable to get enough money to move, and certainly enough cannot receive the necessary funds to move up the social ladder, or significantly improve the living status, with them and they’re families keep living there and serving their wealthy employers
Themes
Dickens views the class opening scene scenario, of students imagination being oppressed, forcing them to simply learn with only an understanding of the facts in life
This rigorous system of Mr Gradgrind and Choakumchild put the children through will stay quiet and never discuss or read fiction, and be raised for the world their parents dreamed to be part of, but unable to progress without the life experience no amount of facts can give you, the education can in some ways be compared to a construction line, with the workers being slotted in and doing a repetitive task that will get them nowhere but produce someone willing to do that job
Coketown has not been mentioned as a royal court, or a poor place, but the gap between the rich and the poor grows ever more, and Coketown has magnificent palaces and mansions in one section, and repetitive houses to stay in for the workers, with blackened chimneys, bricks windows walls, and countless others that get the smog around them, again creating the whole gothic image with a dull pointless ugliness of the barren image of the city
The comparison between employer and employee is stressed every time Bounderby meets Stephen Blackpool and the comparison can be clearly seen, as when Bounderby and Blackpool are at the table, Bounderby’s half is full of silver china and saucers, while Blackpool’s is empty, this shows the power balance between the two-i.e. all the power is in Bounderby’s hands, as is the wealth and the control
Blackpool’s word is rarely trusted by those in power over Bounderby’s and they are so very different in almost all respects, with Bounderby’s life taking its own cource with his allegiance with Gradgrind in Parliament, while Blackpool only has Rachel caring for him, as compared to the city he is another nobody down on his luck
The story also shows family bonds through difficult situations, with the major family scenario of the Gradgrind’s the son and daughter are raised by their father in a factual heartless way, even though he does not realise this, he does go on to realise his mistake, with the mother of the family disabled and unable to move around due to sickness, being manipulated by everyone who walks by, as she has no dominance over anything indeed, and her character suggests she agrees with her husband on the factual upbringing of their children, and also shows the strains the family goes through after Louisa marries Mr Bounderby, and Tom gets involved in the bank robbery, and the family has to somehow try to bounce back, but does not manage to succeed with only a neutral ending
The other families mentioned are the bond of father and child in Cissy Jupes Tale, the Man and wife in Blackpool’s unhappy marriage, and the twist in the story with Mr Bounderby’s mother appearing and explaining his upbringing
Language
Dickens uses a variety of techniques in hard times, mostly descriptive; giving a chance of detail good enough to imagine it, but for everyone’s imagination to be different, repetition gets across the steely characters characteristics
- For Louisa he uses a simple vocabulary, using childly words and simple phrases meant with good intention on her behalf, with no academical subtext or complicated phrases, showing that she’s a good and kind hearted person, but also slightly dim compared to the other main characters
- The language of Mr Gradgrind is always very well developed, and while the descriptions of him make us see a rigid robot like figure, he does speak intellectually throughout the story
- Mr Bounderby however is much more rigid in his language and expresses his thoughts using what’s a fact instead of what’s humane, and this always puts him in a negative light, he may have been ‘born upside down’ where he would have always had such views, and always acted on factual or instinct data to prove his point
- The language of tom and Louisa has two stages during the story, at first they talk in only facts, with little feeling or emotion in their words, but occasionally while in private they speak out freely, or as freely as they can, but in the presence of others they stick to their blank expressions and factual sentences
- During toms elder years he begins to talk more like his father, with a free stroke in his speech and has retained some independence while still being accepted by his father and friends
- Louisa in her elder years changes little to her younger equivalent and stays rigid and factual, showing a feeling of repressed anger inside her
- Mrs Gradgrind is a poorly woman and her language reflects that, being incomplete, with words missing from sentences and grammatical errors if not for which she would sound like Mr Gradgrind, but throughout her brief appearances she keeps her grumbling simple and unimportant
- The language used by Blitzer is the product of Mr’s Gradgrind and Bounderby’s teachings and shows the heartless product of their ideal. in the end they both regret their schooling of Blitzer and realise their wrong, but only too late for some
- The other controversial language used is that of Mr Sleary the Circus leader, who uses a range of bizarre phrases in between his sentences and makes his appearance misunderstood and diverse compared to the other characters’
Conclusion
So in conclusion with my previous statements, as listed above, the novel Hard times has a monotone view of Victorian society, with all characters at a set point being either extremely good or eminently bad, in character and in appearance, much of which suggests that the focus of the story is based solemnly on interaction between characters, and no room for backdrops has been spared from steel bins burning in the winter cold, glum industrial streets and houses varying from basic to lavish all showing the contrast between the rich striving to change society the poor striving to stay out of trouble, and those who strive to be rich
