'What are the reasons which Dickens gives for the hard times described in the novel?'

Rachel Capaldi

‘What are the reasons which Dickens gives for the hard times described in the novel?’

Many characters in the novel are victims of hard times as a result of many factors. These include the lack of money, the education system, the industrialisation in the area and the social injustices of the Victorian era. The novel is divided into three books: sowing, reaping and garnering. The names of these books have biblical references.

‘Ae ye sow, so shall ye reap’ New Testament

This means that there are consequences to all your actions, this idea features strongly in the novel. In the first book ‘sowing’, the actions of the characters were described for example the pragmatic education system. In the second book ‘reaping’, the consequences of these actions are described, and in the third book ‘garnering’, the consequences are explored more, along with the final outcome of these events.

In the novel, Mr Gradgrind causes and suffers from hard times. He is a very rigid character in addition to being ‘a man of fact and calculations’. He causes hard times for others, including his family, with his pragmatic education system. We discover his attitudes to schooling from the very first chapter when he says:

‘In this life, we want nothing but facts, sir; nothing but Facts’

This concept is based upon utilitarianism. This is the idea that nothing except useful and practical things are wanted in life, and this causes many of Dickens’ characters hard times. They thought these concepts would provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people but it only benefited the rich, the poor sill suffered. He tries to inflict this system onto Sissy but he ends up learning a lesson from her. Towards the end of the novel he realises that he has not given his children what they needed to appreciate the full spectrum of life.

Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run to the lecture-room’.

He recognises that his education system was wrong and Dickens makes us feel sorry for him. When Tom robs the bank, we start to see emotion expressed by Mr Gradgrind which shows us how much he is changing. His old view was that emotion is not fact, and is not useful therefore it shouldn’t be expressed, but we start to see emotion later in the novel. Tom is in hiding from the authorities in the circus. Mr Gradgrind helps Tom to escape the country even though it is a fact and the law that if you commit a crime you should be punished. His major hard time is when he realises that his whole belief system is wrong and he is forced to change. He finds it a shock that he doesn’t know his daughter, and that his education system that he has spent years building up is shattered. He also has to live and learn with the fact that his own son Tom has committed a crime. In addition to this, during the course of the novel we discover that Mr Gradgrind becomes the MP for Coketown. He is in a position of power and he can get things to change, he should really be helping people like Stephen Blackpool.

Dickens obviously put a lot of thought into the names of the school room characters. Mr Gradgrind is so named because he is grinding the children down with facts, and Mr M’Choakumchild symbolises the children choking on facts as this is the only thing they are given throughout the day. There are also many metaphors in the school room scene, which add to the extremity of the situation. The children are described as ‘… little vessels,… ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim’. They are also given no individuality, the teachers refer to them as numbers and not names, for example Mr Gradgrind refers to Sissy as ‘girl number twenty’ in the first few chapters. Any expression of imagination is quickly suppressed, as this is not useful it is fanciful. For example, when the teacher asked the children if they would paper a room with representations of horses, half of the children cried yes but on seeing his face quickly changed to saying no. This expression of imagination is suppressed quickly when he says ‘Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality – in fact?’. He seems extremely shocked that the children would have said something which was not a fact. The education system contrasts well with the colourful and imaginative the circus people lead.

In contrast to Gradgrind, Sissy and the circus people represent imagination and fantasy. They are all disregarded at the start but they gain respect as the novel progresses, as people start to realise that they have something valuable to offer. Utilitarianism is supposed to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people but later in the novel we see the model pupil Bitzer saying that he only cares for himself and that that is what he has been taught to do. Bitzer is described as pale, this shows that his entire colour has been drained out of him with facts, he is starved of imagination. He is described as, ‘His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white’. In contrast, Sissy is described as having pink cheeks; she has imagination which provides colour in her life. When Sissy is abandoned by her father, Gradgrind and Bounderby show no consideration of her feelings, as they aren’t facts so aren’t important in life. Gradgrind says: ‘The only condition I make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also, that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no more with any friends who are here present’. This is very insensitive to her feelings, but that would not have been fact. When Tom and Louisa are seen watching the circus by their father, he is so shocked because it is fantasy not fact, he tells the children that he would never believe that they would be ‘in this degraded position’.

Mrs Gradgrind is not a major character in the novel but she still does experience hard times. She suffers from the woman’s role in the Victorian era, they are treated more as possessions than people, have no rights to speak out, and they are not allowed an opinion. No one ever asks Mrs Gradgrind how she is even though she is constantly ill throughout the novel, except once by Louisa when she is dying. Louisa says: ‘Are you in pain, dear mother?’. She has no love shown for her as it is not factual, not even by her husband. ...

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Sissy doesn’t change throughout the novel; she remains loving and full of life despite experiencing difficult times. She is a member of the lower class but is taken on by Mr Gradgrind after she is deserted by her father. Since Gradgrind took her on ‘to be reclaimed and formed’ she is completely submersed in the education system which is very different from her past surroundings in the circus. Her values are completely ignored but they turn out to be right. She helps the other characters in the novel such as Louisa; Sissy looks after during this difficult time. She also goes to Mr Harthouse and tells him to leave Coketown for Louisa’s sake. On top of all this she helps the whole of the Gradgrind family; she is always there for those who need her. She also helps the younger Gradgrind’s as she plays a major part in Mr Gradgrind’s change. They will benefit from Mr Gradgrind’s new more heart orientated attitude. She is also very strong-willed, she sticks to what she believes in for example, she keeps believing that her father will come back; she says ‘He will not be happy for a single minute, till he comes back’.

The class system also causes a lot of hard times. Those who are lower class have little opportunity to speak out. Sissy and the circus people have the right ideas in life but they don’t have any opportunity to speak out anywhere in the novel. They had the right ideas all along but they were ignored. There is also an alarming contrast between the rich and poor. Mr Harthouse can just leave when he gets bored; he has financial security and doesn’t need to work; whereas Stephen Blackpool has to work very hard to earn very little money.

Louisa also suffers from many hard times in the novel, mainly caused by the pragmatic education system and her relationships with the other characters, but her hard times are also a result of the female role in Victorian times. As a child she has no opportunity for the development of her imagination or spirit. Her relationship with her father is deadened by the education system which also kills her emotions. Her relationship with her mother is non-existent as Mrs Gradgrind just lies around all day. At the start of the novel she has a very strong relationship with her brother Tom. They can confide in each other, but as the novel progresses their relationship deteriorates. She is forced into putting all her emotions onto her brother. This love for Tom motivates her to marry Bounderby, who she dislikes and does not love, for his benefit. Her marriage brings money and brings the family closer to power, which Tom exploits. Her affection for him is also the cause of her selling the trinkets her husband has bought her to gain money and relieve Tom of his debts from gambling. She puts her love for him in front of her own happiness. Louisa has no life of her own; it is controlled by her father, Mr Bounderby and her love for Tom. This also shows the male dominated society. As her relationship with Tom deteriorates her relationships with her father and Sissy improve. Unlike many other characters in the novel, Louisa uses her money responsibly to help others in need. This is shown when Mr Bounderby causes Stephen Blackpool’s unemployment which Louisa does not agree with. She then goes to Stephen’s house and gives him some money to help him on his way.

Tom Gradgrind is also a product of the pragmatic education system. He is driven by money, he will do anything to become wealthier, and envy, he is envious that other people may have more than he does. He causes hard times for other characters in the novel. He abuses Stephen because of his class. He knows that Stephen is in a vulnerable position after he has been fired by Mr Bounderby. He tells Stephen to wait outside the bank for about an hour and Bitzer may come and tell Stephen of a good opportunity for him. So, Stephen stands outside at the allotted time, little does he know he is just there to disguise Tom’s bank robbery. He also abuses Louisa because of her sex, her vulnerability and her wealth. He also takes advantage of her love for him. Later on in the novel Tom encourages Louisa to marry Bounderby, even though he knows how unhappy it would make her and knows how much she dislikes him. For example early in the novel Mr Bounderby gives Louisa a kiss on the cheek, she then says, ‘You may cut the piece out with a penknife Tom. I wouldn’t cry’. He only cares for himself, not anyone else. This was obviously a common effect from the education system as this is also seen in Bitzer throughout the novel.

Mr Bounderby is makes out he is a victim of hard times in the novel, but the main source of his suffering is himself. He pretends that he has had a hard youth to gain respect and make his success more outstanding. Mrs Sparsit constantly interferes in his life; this eventually causes his marriage to fall apart. He married Louisa out of duty not out of love. They couldn’t have a loving relationship because that would be showing emotion, and that is not fact. She is just one of his possessions and is just there to cover Mrs Sparsit’s role. Although as a reader you would think he would be more understanding of the lower class residents of Coketown as he has supposedly been in that position himself. He may have convinced himself about his hard background as he repeats it many times throughout the novel. He says things like, ‘I was so ragged and dirty, that you wouldn’t have touched me with a pair of tongs’, throughout the novel. This fantasy that he builds up for himself is shattered when we discover the truth about his background through Mrs Pegler, his mother. At the start of the novel he is described as, ‘A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift his eyebrows up’. Mr Bounderby can also be used as a way to measure how much Mr Gradgrind changes, as he doesn’t change at all.

Another reason for the hard times in the novel is that society was dealing with the masses not individuals. There are many examples of Mr Bounderby and other upper class characters treating the lower class citizens as more of a sea or people, than individuals with individual lives. One of these incidents can be seen when Louisa goes to visit Stephen Blackpool. She has never seen the poverty of the lower class first hand before; she has never thought of them as individuals with individual needs, she had only thought of them as a mass of poor people. ‘She had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component drops’. This is a result of the industrialisation as now all the lower class are seen more as ‘hands’ than people which causes a problem because is thought of as an individual their individual needs are not even recognised let alone met in most cases.

Mrs Sparsit doesn’t experience hard times to the extremity of Stephen Blackpool’s, but she thinks the ones she does experience are exceptionally awful. Her major hard time was being widowed; this was made worse because status is a major issue for her. At the start of the novel she leads a happy life; she is very comfortable living and working for Bounderby. Her job is easy and she enjoys being lady of the house. After Louisa marries him, Mrs Sparsit is clearly jealous, and from that point onwards enjoys causing hard times for Louisa. Throughout the novel she never refers to Louisa as Mrs Bounderby, she only uses Miss Gradgrind. Dickens prepares us for her downfall by turning us against her. She is described as having a big nose for nosing into other people’s business and her eyebrows are also ridiculed.

‘…with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows…’.

Bitzer is used by Mrs Sparsit as a spy throughout his adult life. She chose him because he has no morals, and together they manipulate people. He was a pupil at Gradgrind’s school and later worked as a light porter at the bank. He was a model pupil at school and symbolic of what the education system was trying to produce. Throughout the novel he does not advance as a character; if all society were like him then it would make no advance either. He only cares about himself and he doesn’t show any compassion throughout the novel, he remains cold and hard. He is an amoral character; he shows no interest in helping others. Like Mrs Sparsit, Bitzer causes hard times for others; these include trying to arrest Tom and spying on the workforce. However, there are similarities between him and Tom as they both only look out for themselves.

Fate is another reason for the hard times in the novel. If Rachael hadn’t woken and stopped Stephen’s wife from drinking the medicine, then Stephen’s wife would have died and they could have been together. If Rachael had not made Stephen promise not to join the worker’s union then his fellow workers would not have turned against him, and, if she hadn’t sent Stephen a letter asking him to come back to Coketown, he wouldn’t have fallen down the mineshaft and wouldn’t have been killed.

Stephen Blackpool is a victim of everything that was wrong with society. ‘It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own’. He has a marriage that he can’t escape from, his wife is an alcoholic and only comes back for money; but he can’t afford a divorce. He then meets Rachael who he loves and wants to marry but he can’t because he is a loyal character and feels that he must stay faithful to his wife as he can’t afford a divorce. He goes to his employer Mr Bounderby for help with his marriage situation, but he tells Stephen that he cannot afford a divorce and that he took his wife for better or worse. Ironically, when Bounderby experiences marriage problems later in the novel he just dismisses Louisa. He is a member of the lower class residents of Coketown and works as one of the hands in Bounderby’s factory as he has had no education. He acts as a good contrast to the richer characters in the novel. Stephen remains kind and trustworthy throughout the novel; this quality is abused by other characters in the novel for example when Tom uses him as a cover when he robs the bank. When Stephen looses his job he is unable to get another because once he is rejected by one employer he won’t be able to get a job anywhere else. Stephen’s friends turn against him because he refuses to join Slackbridge’s union.

However, Rachael is a very angelic character who shows compassion for others throughout the novel. She loves Stephen but they cannot be together because of his existing marriage. She makes a big impression on him as she is kind and loving towards him.

‘She turned her head, and the light oh her face shone in upon the midnight of his mind’.

She is normally very calm and composed but we do see one slip of emotion when Stephen is dying. This shows how strong her feelings for him actually were.

There are many social injustices experienced in the novel especially by Stephen Blackpool. This may have been caused by the inequality between the rich and the poor citizens of Coketown. When Stephen wants a divorce he cannot have one as he cannot afford one, despite his unhappiness. Yet when Mr Bounderby wants a divorce he can have one because he is in a better financial situation.

The employment system is also the root of many hard times. The lower class workers are poorly fed and poorly housed, and have to work in poor conditions. They lived in back to back houses lacking ventilation and have poor sanitation. Even women and children were expected to work for up to fifteen hours a day, six days a week. The workers hands were the only important things to their employers; they were only needed to manage the machines. The employers not only controlled their time at work but also their free time. They were expected to go to church every Sunday and the employers were constantly concerned about what they were doing when they weren’t working. (quote)

Money was also a problem for some characters in the novel. When you were poor the only chance of survival was to work as a hand in the factory. James Harthouse can just leave and travel because he has financial support. However when Stephen looses his job; he is forced to go and find work in order to survive. In the Victorian society money meant power; the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.

Mr Harthouse acts as a catalyst in bringing out Louisa’s feelings. He was born into money which meant power. Like Mrs Sparsit and Bitzer, he makes hard times for other people. However he did experience being rejected by both Louisa and Sissy. This was hard for him because he is very self absorbed. He leaves Coketown because he is bored and has the ease to do this because of his financial situation; he doesn’t need a career. He only makes life easy for himself, no one else; which is a similar situation to Bitzer.

Industrialisation was also a problem in the Victorian era. People were coming into towns from the country to work in the factories. These had very poor and dangerous working conditions which led to riots all over the country. The workers felt threatened by industrialisation. Thomas Carlyle was a philosopher in the Victorian era, he said: ‘Men are grown mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand’. The workers set up trade unions to combat these problems, but these were not necessarily as good as they sound. Dickens was not in favour of the trade unions. Slackbridge is in charge of the trade union in the novel. His description is not favourable; and this is reinforced by the way he treats Stephen Blackpool. As a result of his treatment, Stephen fell ‘into the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd’. Coketown itself is also affected by the industrialisation; this is shown in the descriptions.

‘... where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness’.

This is shown again later in another description:

‘The fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown’.

Dickens himself also experienced many hard times. His father became bankrupt when Charles was little so he had to earn a living from an early age. Another result of this was that he was always moving around. To start off with he worked in a bottle blacking factory, but later he became interested in freelance journalism and his first jobs were taking notes in court. This meant that he had a good experience of life, the criminal world and law. He also experienced social injustices such as those of Stephen Blackpool. In later life he was aware of social injustices in the world around him and he often put these into his books. He wrote his books in instalments which explains some of the cliff-hanger endings of the chapters. He goes on to become a very famous author who was very critical of lives, industrialisation and money; all of these are explored in hard times.

Finally, Dickens’ experiences as a child came out in a convincing portrayal of what was wrong with the Victorian society. He was a critic to his time and from his novels we can learn a great deal about the Victorian era. Many of the characters in the novel experience hard times as a result of many factors. Stephen Blackpool is the innocent victim in the novel; he suffers greatly through no fault of his own. He is kind and trustworthy yet he is abused. Other characters such as Mrs Sparsit and Bitzer enjoy causing hard times for others. Some suffer more than others; but Dickens uses his characters to explore the hard times of the era. In conclusion, many of Dickens’ characters suffer as a result of numerous causes.

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