Dickens re-enforces everything he has said about the school and Gradgrind in chapter one by describing Gradgrind’s clothes. ‘Square coat, square legs, square shoulders – nay his very neckcloth’. Dickens is very clever in this phrase as he uses Satire to make us laugh at Gradgrind. By describing him as ‘square’ shows that Gradgrind is very factual and re-enforces that he has a rationalist view on education.
Dickens finishes chapter one by describing the children. He describes them as ‘little vessels’ that are ‘ready to have imperial gallons of full of facts poured in them’. By using the metaphor ‘little vessels’’ Dickens give the impression that there are a lot of children in a small space sitting in silence. By exercising the word ‘imperial’ before gallons helps to give of the impression that the school us factual. It shows Gradgrinds obsession with facts, he cannot just have gallons, as that is not factual enough. They have to be ‘metric or imperial’.
The name of chapter two is very important as by calling it ‘murdering the innocents’ Dickens is referring to the biblical story where King Herod ordered all baby boys to be killed for his own gain. This relates to the metaphorical ‘killing’ of the students in the school.
At the start of chapter two Gradgrind is described as ‘a man of facts and calculations, this re-enforces the idea that he is very factual. Gradgrind’s name also shows this because by using the word grind, Dickens gives the reader the image of someone grey, dull and very grinding every time they read it.
Dickens continues to describe his loathing for the educational system further when he describes Gradgrind as a man who is ‘ready to weigh any parcel of human nature’. This gives the impression that Gradgrind is ready to judge anyone and that he is like a computer, he simply takes something and tells people what it is literally, not what is figuratively. This is also shown earlier in the paragraph where Dickens writes ‘that two and two are four and nothing over; this shows that Gradgrind has no reasoning and won’t believe anything until it has been proven in the correct and scientific manner. This
Is how Gradgrind brings up the school children and what they are taught to believe in.
Dickens then goes on to explain more about Gradgrind and the rationalist education with the phrase ‘girl number twenty’, although the phrase is only three words long it tells the reader a lot about the education. It shows that Gradgrind doesn’t want to get involved with the children by learning their names because if he did he would be treating them as if they were individuals, something of which they are not worthy. Also if he treats them as individuals he brings emotions into the school making it a romanticist place. So he refers to the children as numbers to re-instate the fact that he is a rationalist and the children are simply facts until they know enough facts to be treated like human beings, but until then they are numbers.
Dickens then brings in Sissy Jupe, a romanticist character. It is shown that she is not a rationalist just by her name, Sissy. Sissy is personal, a nickname and also by ‘blushing, standing up and curtseying, it shows that she is polite and nervous, another contrast with Gradgrind who is sure of himself and has no need for manners. . Gradgrind puts Sissy down as soon as she says her name by saying ‘call yourself Cecilia’. This shows how rationalist he is and that he doesn’t want to get personally involved. Also Cecilia is a very factual name, the one on her birth certificate; he doesn’t want to call people by romanticist names and doesn’t want the other children to be influenced by her.
Dickens that shows that Gradgrind has to question Sissy more to find out why she is a romanticist and so that he can defend the rational beliefs on which he bringing up the other children. He discovers almost immediately when Sissy states ‘It’s father as calls me Sissy’; this makes Gradgrind think that Sissy’s father is to blame and starts to question her father by asking ‘what is your father?’ the reader and Sissy presume that he is asking what her father does for a living, but if you look at the phrase you can nearly see that he is questioning her father as a person, asking her if her father is a monster and why he would bring someone up in such a romanticist fashion.
Dickens continues to build on the contrast between Sissy and Gradgrind further down the page when he Sissy states that her father looks after horses in the circus. When Sissy says that he ‘breaks horses in the ring’ Gradgrind reacts almost violently stating ‘you mustn’t tell us about the ring here’, this is because the circus ruing is a very free, creative and romanticist place where people doing what they like because they want to. Gradgrind doesn’t want any of these good things in life getting into the heads of the other children who are still learning facts.
Dickens then shows the Gradgrind needs to re-instate his authority to the other children and show Sissy up some more by making her give him a definition of a horse. When she cannot he almost laughs at her, pointing at her and saying ‘Girl number twenty, unable to define a horse!’. The exclamation marks makes it seem that Gradgrind is almost laughing at Sissy and makes the reader feel sorry and think that they wouldn’t be able to define a horse if they were asked.
Dickens then introduces another character that contrasts with Sissy, Bixter. By describing Sissy as ‘dark-eyes and darked haired’ and Bitzer as ‘light-eyed and light-haired’, you get the impression of life and death. Sissy seems full of life, with dark hair the reader can imagine her spending time in the sun and enjoying life. Bitzer is the opposite; he has spent so much time inside, learning facts that he is practically dead. By saying ‘if he were cut, he would bleed white’, Dickens also gives the impression that Bitzer is not alive; the rationalist education has made him factual. People who are alive bleed red, not white, white is a ghostly colour, one that people associate with angels… i.e. death. This helps the reader to imagine how bad the education must be to have pupils that are practically dead.
Bitzer’s smartness is shown when he is asked to describe a horse. By describing it as ‘Quadruped’ and ‘graminivorous’ shows that Gragdrind’s education is very factual. Most people would describe a horse as an animal that has four legs and people ride. This is what I believe Sissy would have described it as, if she was given the opportunity. Gragdrind’s education teaches the children to use long words and tell people random information like ‘sheds coat in the spring.’
After this Dickens introduces another character, although he doesn’t mention his name, the reader knows that he is a strong person and that he probably has a name that would describe his personality. By calling the man ‘a professed pugilist’ gives the impression that the man is a fighter and is very rational.
This new character is compared to Gradgrind later when he asks the children another random question, ‘would you paper your room with representations of horses?’ to this the children are stunned so half of them say yes and half say no. The half they no find out that they are correct, as he says ‘do you ever see horses walking up and down the side of rooms in reality?’ this shows that the man is a rationalist and that he is there to teach the children about why they should believe in facts.
The next question the man asks is similar to the first ‘would you use a carpet having representations of flowers upon it’. This time most of the children say no, but Sissy Jupe says yes, another contrast with the education system, the man then asks her why she would carpet a room with flowers, she replies simply ‘I am very fond of flowers’. She continues to explain why she would have flowers on the carpet but makes a mistake when she uses the word ‘fancy’. The man replied ‘you are never to fancy’, Gradgrind agrees with him by saying ‘you are not to do anything of the kind’. This shows that the Gradgrind and the gentlemen are both against anything romanticist, even words. The word ‘fancy’ involves having an opinion on something and having opinions lead to emotions something, which Gradgrind and the gentleman do not allow.
The education system is summed up in paragraph where the gentleman explains why she is not allowed to use the word fancy. He says ‘you do not walk on flowers in facts’, ‘you cannot be permitted to paint butterflies on crockery’ and ‘you never meet quadrupeds going up and down walls’. This shows that the education is very factual. He uses all of the questions he asked and explains that nothing can happen unless it is real, he explains that he believe in plain carpets, pottery and walls and will not accept anything but these, because if he did he would be using his imagination which is romanticist.
Towards the end of chapter 2 Dickens introduces yet another rationalist character, ‘Mr. M’Choakumchild’, although he is not described, by using a metaphor inside the name gives the impression that M’Choakumchild is very rationalist and that he is just like Gradgrind, choking the life out of the children.
At the end of chapter 2 Dickens describes M’Choakumchild looking at the children like ‘Morgiana in the Forty Thieves’, this refers to the story of Ali Baba where Morgiana saves his life by looking into the jars of oil which contain the thieves and killing them. By saying M’Choakumchild is looking at them like Morgiana, Dickens is saying that M’Choakumchild is killing them.
Dickens aims when he wrote Hard Times were obviously to tell people what the education system was like and turn them against it, he showed this in his descriptions of the people and places in which the opening chapters are set. I think that Dickens was very successful in convincing the readers that a rationalist education is not right, before I read these chapters I had no idea about the world in the 1850’s and Dickens has persuaded me that the world nowadays is better because we are romanticist’s. By finishing the book with the conversation between Gradgrind and Bitzer, Dickens sums up the effects of the rationalist education perfectly. It seems the Gradgrind has discovered it is wrong and is asking Bitzer his opinion but when Bitzer says that a heart is ‘relating to the circulation of the blood’ Gradgrind thinks what ahs he done. This is ironic because it is the opposite to what he was like at the start of the book. I think that the fact that we are now studying fiction means that Dickens has achieved his aim, fiction is a very romanticist thing and one that people like Gradgrind in the 1850’s would not have read. Now everyone is reading fiction and is not really fussed about knowing only facts, people know that there are many other things in life that are more important than facts.
