Hard Times

By Charles Dickens

This story of class conflict in Victorian England serves as a powerful critique of the social injustices that plagued the Industrial Revolution.

Always concerned with issues of class, social injustice, and employment, Dickens shows in Hard Times, written in 1854, a broader concern with the philosophies and economic movements which underlie those issues. Three parallel story lines reflect a broad cross-section of society and its thinking.

This edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
-A chronology of the author's life and work
-A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jan 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781416548157

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. Regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Dickens had a prolific collection of works including fifteen novels, five novellas, and hundreds of short stories and articles. The term “cliffhanger endings” was created because of his practice of ending his serial short stories with drama and suspense. Dickens’ political and social beliefs heavily shaped his literary work. He argued against capitalist beliefs, and advocated for children’s rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens advocacy for such causes is apparent in his empathetic portrayal of lower classes in his famous works, such as The Christmas Carol and Hard Times.

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HARD TIMES

HARD TIMES

Charles Dickens

Supplementary material written by

Kathleen Helal

Series edited by

Cynthia Brantley Johnson

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY OF CHARLES DICKENS’S LIFE AND WORK

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Hard Times

HARD TIMES

NOTES

INTERPRETIVE NOTES

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

INTRODUCTION

Hard Times: FANCY AND FACT

What would we become if our lives were nothing but work? What if our children were deprived of the joy that comes with play? Dickens looks at this dystopian world in Hard Times, his tenth novel. The shortest of Dickens’s novels, Hard Times communicates simply, showing the shortcomings of a society that values Fact over Fancy, and cherishes logic above all else.

The novel is set in the fictional city of Coketown, a filthy, smoky industrial slum in northern England. The general malaise there is caused by shortsighted Utilitarian social policies and other historically relevant injustices, such as the economic gulf between the classes and sexist, restrictive divorce laws. In Hard Times, Dickens veers toward propaganda as he specifically critiques the capitalist paradigm of class, examining relations between exploitative, wealthy factory owners, such as the novel’s Josiah Bounderby, and workers, such as hero Stephen Blackpool, who find themselves caught between factories and unions.

Poverty and poor working conditions are not the only problems confronting Blackpool, Dickens’s heroic worker. He is also saddled with a drunken, useless wife, whom he cannot divorce to marry the woman he truly loves. British divorce law was being contested at the time, and Dickens—in an unhappy marriage himself—wanted reform. At the time, divorce could only be granted by an Act of Parliament, but change was debated both in Parliament and among British citizens.

Class divisions and labor laws would be the subject of many later protest novels, many of which sag under the weight of their authors’ literary ineptitude and political fervor. Though Hard Times may be seen as a forerunner of the protest fiction of the later industrial era, it has the good fortune to have Dickens as an author. In his masterly hands, the evils of capitalism are transformed into fiction that is both instructive and moving.

Life and Work of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was one of the nineteenth century’s most prolific and respected novelists. The second child of John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow, he was born in 1812 in Portsmouth, England. When he was five years old, the family moved to Chatham on the southern coast of England, where they would spend the next six years. In 1823 the Dickens family moved again, to London. When Charles was twelve, his father was imprisoned for debt, remaining incarcerated for three months. During that time Charles’s family lived in debtors’ prison with his father, leaving Charles largely on his own. He worked at Warren’s Blacking factory, gluing labels to bottles of shoe polish, finding himself very poor and often hungry. Young Charles was also tormented by the thought that his parents had abandoned him to this hard life. Dickens’s time as a child laborer left a permanent, unpleasant impression on him; he did not discuss this trauma publicly, but it surfaced in his fiction, particularly in Hard Times. Sissy’s naive idealization of her absent father and Stephen Blackpool’s despair while trapped in a mine shaft reflect the conflicted emotional struggle facing Dickens during this desolate time.

Dickens attended school at the Wellington Academy in London until he was fifteen, but primarily he taught himself, using the library of the British Museum in London. Before becoming a writer he worked as a law clerk, a shorthand court reporter, and a news reporter; his fictional writing drew extensively from these experiences. His first published novel, The Pickwick Papers (serialized from March 1836 to October 1837) was quite popular, establishing the young writer’s reputation and raising his audience’s expectations. Income from his first publication allowed Dickens to marry Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have ten children. His next novels, Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841) were also serialized and became enormously popular. Many of his subsequent novels, including David Copperfield (1849-1850) and Bleak House (1852-1853) were longer and more complex than his earlier work.

Declining sales of Dickens’s periodical Household Words led him to serialize Hard Times there. The first installment, which ran on April 1, 1854, would be one of twenty weekly parts. The novel reflects many of Dickens’s experiences during the time he worked on the book. For example, he traveled to Preston, a northern industrial town, shortly before writing Hard Times; a major labor strike was taking place there and he attended a union meeting much like the one depicted in the novel. Similarly, the difficulties that Stephen Blackpool faces in obtaining a divorce parallel Dickens’s desire for a divorce. He finally separated from Catherine in 1858, and his health declined seriously in the next decade, partly as a result of his busy work schedule. In 1870, he collapsed during a public reading in England, just after an American lecture tour. Dickens died from a stroke shortly thereafter; his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, remained unfinished as it was being published serially at the time.

Historical and Literary Context of Hard Times

Utilitarianism

If a concept can be considered the villain of a novel, then the villain in Hard Times is Utilitarianism in its most extreme form. Utilitarianism is a philosophical view derived from the work of English economist and social reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). In his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham argued that laws must promote happiness, or pleasure, and eliminate pain for the majority of citizens. The English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), whose father followed Bentham, coined the term and was the most significant Utilitarian thinker publishing in the period Hard Times covers. Increasing the general happiness is the basic point of Utilitarianism, though there is disagreement about how to do this. For example, Bentham believed that we can judge the goodness of an act by looking at its consequences, while Mill claims that we must look at whether the act follows a principle that generally produces good consequences.

While promoting the general welfare seems like a noble pursuit, Utilitarianism’s critics often claim that it permits immoral actions as long as they produce good consequences. Dickens dramatizes Utilitarianism’s potential problems when Sissy Jupe tells Louisa that her schoolmasters confuse her: And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I couldn’t think of a better one—that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, too.

During the mid-nineteenth century, Utilitarianism encountered many opponents as its proponents succeeded in replacing relief houses for the poor with workhouses, a change made official in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Workhouses provided minimal—sometimes very minimal—housing, food, health care, and education and work to the able-bodied poor. However, these people were often treated like prisoners, forced to wear uniforms and live under rigorous schedules set by others. Workhouse conditions were so degrading that some poor people preferred to starve. Dickens opposed these workhouses; their existence is attacked most notably in Oliver Twist, and their underlying Utilitarianism is criticized most notably in Hard Times via the character Thomas Gradgrind. Dickens’s novel reveals the tragic result of Gradgrind’s clumsy, narrow-minded Utilitarianism, with which he literally grinds his students under a factory-produced education that makes them miserable.

Education in Victorian England

It is especially fitting that Hard Times opens in a classroom, given that it reflects debates about education and school reform in Victorian England. The novel begins by bombarding the reader with Gradgrind’s thundering words: Now, what I want are facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Gradgrind does not perceive the possibility that his words have another meaning: facts about life are what he want[s], or lacks, and Dickens uses the structure of these opening sentences to suggest that hard facts may sometimes be at odds with life’s pleasures and vagaries. The rest of the novel demolishes Gradgrind’s belief that this narrow factual education helps students.

Gradgrind’s school is an extreme version of mid-nineteenth-century British schools, which changed constantly as politicians sought an approach that could be used to educate all children. Less than a decade before Dickens wrote Hard Times, James Kay-Shuttleworth (1804-1877) directed an experimental, government-supported teacher training program that aimed to systematize British teaching; Kay-Shuttleworth’s St. John’s College in Battersea, London, was the first British teacher training college. Like Gradgrind, Kay-Shuttleworth devised a program that gave facts a starring role in education. He established regular government inspections for schools receiving government grants, and created the teacher-pupil system, under which advanced students between the ages of thirteen and seventeen served as teachers’ assistants in primary school while still attending secondary school. Some thought Kay-Shuttleworth’s approach was worthwhile, but Dickens satirizes his one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning.

The Circus

Sissy Jupe, her father, Mr. E. W. B. Childers, and Mr. Sleary belong to the wild world of the circus—a sphere directly opposed to staid Utilitarianism, grim industrial society, and standardized Victorian schools. In describing Sleary’s circus, Dickens refers specifically to London’s main circus, Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre (established in the late-eighteenth century). Dickens also refers to several acts performed there, including the Tyrolean flower act, probably inspired by Laura Woolford, a performer known as The Italian Flower-Girl, and The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford, performed from 1853 to1854. The latter act involved horseback performances, which were extremely popular in circuses. Philip Astley (1742-1814), for whom the amphitheater was named, began his long career as a showman and ringmaster with an equestrian act, during which he stood on a horse’s back as it ran in circles.

Unlike so many of the other characters in Hard Times—the Gradgrinds, the Bounderbys, the Blackpools, and the Harthouses—the members of Sleary’s circus are a close family. Mid-nineteenth-century circuses were often intimate affairs operated and populated by generations of various families; children learned a complex trade there and performers intermarried. This sense of community is evident when Sissy must leave her family to join Gradgrind and Bounderby: The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together—it was soon done, for they were not many—and to pack them in a basket which had often traveled with them …. theypressed about her and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing her; and brought the children to take leave of her. Master Kidderminster, in whose young nature there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to have harboured matrimonial views … moodily withdrew. Dickens sets the circus realm as a sort of antidote to Victorian society’s depressing economic and political realities. In doing so, he emphasizes that world’s humanity, in contrast to the austerity and cold pragmatism of the industrial worlds. In both cases, these traits find their fullest expression in fundamental social institutions, such as school and the family.

CHRONOLOGY OF CHARLES DICKENS’S LIFE AND WORK

1812: Born on February 7 to John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow in Portsmouth, England.

1824: Dickens’s father imprisoned at Marshalsea for unpaid debts; Charles leaves school to work, but returns when his father is released.

1827: Begins work as a law clerk.

1830: Begins work as a shorthand court reporter.

1833: Works as a newspaper reporter. Publishes his first short story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, under the pen name Boz.

1836: Marries Catherine Hogarth. Pickwick Papers begins serial publication.

1837: First child of ten—a son—is born. Oliver Twist begins serial publication.

1838: Nicholas Nickleby begins serial publication.

1840: The Old Curiosity Shop begins serial publication.

1841: Publishes Barnaby Rudge.

1842: Dickens family travels in America. American Notes published.

1843: Publishes A Christmas Carol.

1843: Martin Chuzzlewit begins serial publication.

1846: Dombey and Son begins serial publication.

1849: David Copperfield begins serial publication.

1851: Catherine, now a mother of nine, suffers a nervous breakdown. The Dickenses eight-month-old daughter, Dora Annie, dies, as does Dickens’s father.

1852: Bleak House begins serial publication.

1853: Delivers first of many public readings.

1854: Hard Times begins serial publication in Household Words, Dickens’s weekly periodical.

1855: Little Dorrit begins serial publication.

1858: Gives a series of public readings. Separates from his wife.

1859: Publishes A Tale of Two Cities.

1860: Publishes Great Expectations.

1864: Our Mutual Friend begins serial publication.

1870: Dies on June 9 of a cerebral hemorrhage, leaving the serial novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Hard Times

1771: First cotton mill opens in Cromford, England.

1810: Robert Owen begins calls for a ten-hour workday.

1824: British workers allowed to form unions.

1832: Reform Bill extends voting rights to the middle class, but excludes workers.

1833: First Factory Act limits child labor and sets minimal education requirements.

1834: Poor Law Amendment Act restricts poverty relief.

1837: Queen Victoria takes power.

1838: People’s Charter petition is presented in Parliament, forming the basis for Chartism, a reform movement concerned with workers’ rights.

1839: Privy Council Education Committee established.

1842: Reformer Edwin Chadwick reports on working-class health conditions.

1844: Earl of Shaftsbury forms the Ragged School Union, overseeing charitable schools. Second Factory Act restricts women’s and children’s work hours. Royal Commission on the Health of Towns appointed.

1846: Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth directs a government-supported educational system emphasizing teacher training and a factual curriculum.

1847: Third Factory Act grants children and women a ten-hour workday.

1848: Marx and Engels publish the Communist Manifesto in London. Cholera epidemic leads to a General Board of Health and a Public Health Act.

1850: Fourth Factory Act limits textile factory hours, but extends workdays to 10½ hours.

1853: Royal commission recommends letting civil courts grant divorces, but no changes are made; divorce still requires an Act of Parliament.

1853: Pay disputes lead to the Preston cotton strike.

1854: Matrimonial Causes Bill debated in Parliament, but not passed until 1857.

1867: Parliamentary Reform Act gives workers the right to vote.

1870: Married Women’s Property Act allows women some property rights.

HARD TIMES

Inscribed to Thomas Carlyle

CHARACTERS

BITZER, a well-crammed pupil in Mr. Gradgrind’s model school

STEPHEN BLACKPOOL, an honest, hard-working power-loom weaver in Mr. Bounderby’s factory

MR. JOSIAH BOUNDERBY, a boastful and wealthy manufacturer

MR. E. W. B. CHILDERS, a member of Sleary’s Circus Troupe

MR. THOMAS GRADGRIND, a retired wholesale hardware merchant

THOMAS GRADGRIND, his youngest son; a selfish, ill-natured whelp

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE, a friend of Mr. Gradgrind’s

SIGNOR JUPE, a clown in Sleary’s Circus Troupe

MR. MCCHOAKUMCHILD, a teacher in Mr. Gradgrind’s model school

SLACKBRIDGE, a trades-union agitator

MR. SLEARY, a stout, flabby man; the proprietor of a circus

MRS. BLACKPOOL, the wife of Stephen Blackpool; a dissolute, drunken woman

EMMA GORDON, a member of Sleary’s Circus Troupe

MRS. GRADGRIND, the feeble-minded wife of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind

JANE GRADGRIND, younger daughter of the preceding

LOUISA GRADGRIND, the eldest child of Mr. and Mrs.Gradgrind; afterwards the wife of Mr. Josiah Bounderby

CECILIA JUPE(Sissy), the daughter of Signor Jupe, a circus clown

MRS. PEGLER, a mysterious old woman, withered, but tall and shapely

RACHAEL, a factory hand; a friend of Stephen Blackpool’s

LADY SCADGERS, a fat old woman; great-aunt to Mrs. Sparsit

JOSEPHINE SLEARY, a fair-haired young woman; the daughter of Mr. Sleary, the circus proprietor

MRS. SPARSIT, an elderly lady; Mr. Bounderby’s housekeeper

BOOK THE FIRST

SOWING

I

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL¹

NOW, WHAT I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders—nay, 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.

In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons² of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

II

MURDERING THE INNOCENTS¹

THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all suppositions, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind—no, sir!

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words boys and girls, for sir, Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.

Girl number twenty, said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?

Sissy Jupe, sir, explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

Sissy is not a name, said Mr. Gradgrind. Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.

It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir, returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey.

Then he has no business to do it, said Mr. Gradgrind. Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?

He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?

If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir.

You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?

Oh yes, sir.

"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier,² and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse."

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)

Girl number twenty unable to define a horse! said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.

Bitzer, said Thomas Gradgrind. Your definition of a horse.

"Quadruped. Graminivorous.³ Forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

Now girl number twenty, said Mr. Gradgrind. You know what a horse is.

She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper if she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead and sat down again.

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other people’s too), a professed pugilist;⁴ always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus,⁵ always to be heard of at the bar of his little public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch,⁶ wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All England)⁷ to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commissioners should reign upon earth.

Very well, said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys: Would you paper a room with representations of horses?

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, Yes, sir! Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, No, sir!—as the custom is in these examinations.

Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would paint it.

"You must paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly.

You must paper it, said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you like it or not. Don’t tell us you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?"

I’ll explain to you, then, said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality—in fact? Do you?

Yes, sir! from one half. No, sir! from the other.

Of course, No, said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. Why, then, you are not to see anywhere what you don’t see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don’t have in fact. What is called Taste is only another name for Fact.

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery, said the gentleman. Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?

There being a general conviction by this time that No, sir! was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe.

Girl number twenty, said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

So you would carpet your room—or your husband’s room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband—with representations of flowers, would you? said the gentleman. Why would you?

If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers, returned the girl.

And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?

It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy—

Aye, aye, aye! But you mustn’t fancy, cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. That’s it! You are never to fancy.

You are not, Cecilia Jupe, Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, to do anything of that kind.

Fact, fact, fact! said the gentleman. And Fact, fact, fact! repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

You are to be in all things regulated and governed, said the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy⁸ altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must see, said the gentleman, for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste."

The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded.

Now, if Mr. McChoakumchild, said the gentleman, will proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure.

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. Mr. McChoakumchild, we only wait for you.

So Mr. McChoakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs.⁹ He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography,¹⁰ etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way into Her Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council’s Schedule B,¹¹ and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the watersheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, McChoakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves:¹² looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good McChoakumchild: When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brimful by-andby, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

III

A LOOPHOLE

MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a model. He intended every child in it to be a model—just as the young Gradgrinds were all models.

There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. They had been lectured at from their tenderest years; coursed,¹ like little hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run to the lecture-room. The first object with which they had an association, or of which they had a remembrance, was a large blackboard with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it.

Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre. Fact forbid! I only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical dens by the hair.

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!² No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen,³ and driven Charles’s Wain⁴ like a locomotive engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb:⁵ it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.

To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a mile or two of a great town—called Coketown in the present faithful guide-book.

A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing; four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account-book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts⁶ for the housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms; everything that heart could desire.

Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in various departments of science too. They had a little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore

Reviews for Hard Times

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here?

My friend Levi Stahl once noted how reading Henry James utilized the higher gears of his brain. I have always relished that sentiment, though I fear Henry James is above my pay grade. It is a different kettle with Dickens, my maudlin thoughts drift to Cassavetes on Capra, a reworking of my already repurposed grace. Get behind me, social realism.

Hard Times is an interesting collection of set pieces collected in a smelting town with a set of characters which honestly can be seen in Turgenev. The novel doesn't afford an arc much as a series of consequences. It is here where the other (evil) Scott Walker from Wisconsin finds his nocturnal emission: organized labor chokes the life out of people. It couldn't be inhaling coal dust or toiling every day bereft of Vitamin C, no, it is collective bargaining and an improper educational system. I should note that the Governor isn't a character in this novel. Only his peculiar sentiment.

Siblings are raised in a Spartan pedagogic environment, one which worships facts and retention as opposed to creativity. The daughter then marries a self made Scott Pruitt, while the wayward son fancies gambling and living above his station. There is no mention of an ostrich jacket. There is an honest worker. He can't abide by the union and, before Bob's your uncle, he is fingered for a robbery. Life can only aspire to transcend self-interest. It remains but an aspiration.

[lisahistory · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the version from 1834, as originally published serialized in Household Words. Highly recommended, as read by Phil Benson, who has the perfect accent and intonation for Dickens' only northern novel. I didn't realize till almost the end that "Hard" has a double meaning, not just difficult (as in the life of poor working people) but unemotional and uncaring. The children are taught to be hard, which puts Luisa in a bad marriage and Tom into an immoral lifestyle. Bounderby is hard on others. It is Gradgrind's turn away from being hard which helps save everyone, and the characters who were not hard at all (Stephen, Rachael, and Sissy) meet their various fates but always retain their integrity.

[therebelprince · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Justly one of Dickens' least-read novels, Hard Times is a bit of an anomaly in several ways. His 10th novel, Dickens was writing in the journal Household Words in 1854, which gave him a lot less space than usual - this is perhaps a third the length of your average Dickens work. It's also a fairly straightforward story that strikes one more as a moral treatise than anything else. Aside from the famous circus sequence, the novel feels dry and a little perfunctory. The Lancashire characters' accents are also questionable at best, and indecipherable at worst.

George Bernard Shaw liked this book, and it's not hard to see why. This is perhaps Dickens' most blatantly political book, an argument against society becoming too rational and utilitarian, too capitalist at the extent of humanity. It was an argument that had already been greatly lost by 1854, and one we are still fighting today in 2016. In that sense, Hard Times still encapsulates Dickens' core philosophies. At the same time, this is never going to be one of the works for which CD is remembered. His sheer talent is still there, in spades, but it's notable that after this work, Dickens entered the third and final act of his career, in which his novels were allowed to take their time, and he'd never sound a dull note again.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The entrance of kind, caring, and imaginative little Sissy into the fact dominated Gradgrind family surprisingly does little to change the older children, Tom and Louisa. Tom becomes more of a selfish and self-indulgent hypocrite, while Louisaoddly stays distant from the carefree and creative life that Sissy could open for them.Louisa remains so flat in this "eminently practical" existence that she comes across as a depressive.She must have been strikingly beautiful for the handsome, intelligent, willful, rake and villain James Harthouse to be attracted to her even as a passing conquest.The plot evolves so boringly slowly that Harthouse emerges as the only halfway exciting and intriguing characteronce good man Stephen Blackpool has left Coketown. Their names could be reversed since the hero is a sturdy house of heart and the other boasts of a pool of darkness where his heart felt morals should be.Other characters are simply too good to be true or just plain old Dicksonian caricatures.Worse still is that translations are needed for Stephen's noble dialect and Stearly's lisp -they are both like reading paragraphs of baby talk.Only a few memorable quotes among all the admirable descriptions of smoke and fumes: "What does he come here cheeking us for, then?"

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my 10th Dickens novel, read in rough chronological order of publication. I've read worse, and better. Mercifully a single deck and not the normal triple. There are a few genuinely touching scenes of reconciliation and the theme of the need for love over facts is somewhat modern in this age of information and answers. I don't think this novel will stick in my memory for very long, there is a lot of cliche Dickens, although the quality of the writing - choice of words and sentence structure - as always elevates it above genre fiction.I was bemused by the association of "Roman" with the evil characters (easily searched in an electronic edition). Mr. Bounderby has a "Roman nose", Mrs. Sparsit also has a Roman nose and eyebrows Coriolanian. She is a "Roman matron going outside the city walls to treat with an invading general." Mr. Slackbridge is compared with a "Roman Brutus", and Mr. Bounderby plays a "Roman part". There were many stereotypes wrapped up in the word "Roman" for a Victorian reader. Dickens seems to blame the upper-class Aristocratic association with Enlightenment ideals who allied with bankers (big-nosed Mediterraneans ie. Jews, foreigners) that then exploited the good people of England, literally sending them down the "hell pit" to die. It's simplistic and ultimately racist in a 19th century way, but overlooked since the message is humanitarian to improve the condition of the working poor.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading this back to back with Pickwick Papers this work is darker and more cynical. But still an excellent book, by turns comic, thoughtful and timely, another great novel by Mr. Dickens. Also a masterful performance by the reader, Anton Lesser.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was assigned Hard Times in high school, and actually remembered it as one of the few works by Dickens I had enjoyed. Rereading it, I did still enjoy it on the whole, but I still found in it so many of the qualities that put me off in Dickens--although often they're closely associated with qualities I do like.What I do like is the humor. Dickens can be witty and sharp, and this satire of utilitarianism comes off in bright primary colors, and his distaste for the Industrial Revolution and Industrialists and members of Unions alike in sooty black. Yet in terms of this picture of the Industrial North of England I couldn't help contrasting it in my mind--unfavorably--to Gaskell's North and South. There are ways in which I do find Dickens the superior writer. He had the humor I remember lacking from Gaskell and goodness, Dickens can turn a memorable phrase. But Gaskell's is a much more nuanced portrait of the Industrial Revolution. She shows its dark side--she can't be accused, unlike Dickens' character Bounderby, of trying to claim the smoky, grimy air is good for your health! Or that factory work is "light" and "pleasant." But Gaskell also shows the dynamism of the new forces at work that empowered workers compared to what had come before or to the more agricultural, class-bound South. Dickens' industrialist Bounderby is no more than a caricature--Gaskell's industrialist Thornton is a rounded figure, with virtues and flaws and a point of view that doesn't represent a straw man. On the other side of the class divide, Gaskell's workingman Nicholas Higgins to me represents a much stronger figure than either Slackbridge or the sentimentalized Blackwell in Hard Times. And I hate how Dickens represents the speech of the working class, though he's hardly alone in that in his era or ours. But it was a trial trying to make out Blackwell's speech: "I ha' hed what's been spok'n o' me, and tis' lickly that I shan't mend it." It's not as if educated speakers of English don't drop sounds. How would you pronounce "thought?" But it's not as if Dickens resorts to that kind of phonetic spelling above for upper class characters. Those caricatures, over-the-top characterizations and the hectoring polemics extend even to one of Dickens' most notable characteristics--the use of character names as tags for one-sided qualities--even if I do have to smile at names such as "Gradgrind" or "Bounderby" or "Harthouse."If my rating doesn't fall below a three (and I didn't hesitate to give A Tale of Two Cities lower) it's because, reading Blackwell's dialogue aside, this is so very readable. So much of this book is very, very quotable. I also found Louisa Bounderby an interesting character. She's a much less pallid character than I usually see in Dicken's women characters--including the others within this book not out and out caricatures like Mrs Sparsit. Louisa's a kind of anti-Emma Bovary. If Flaubert's title heroine was a female Don Quixote, driven to destruction by too much fanciful reading, then Louisa is the other side of the spectrum--one made emotionally arid by strangling all imagination and playfulness out of her from an early age to suit her father's utilitarian principles. And at least in this novel I can't accuse Dickens of being verbose--this one is less than 300 pages. Worth reading, despite my reservations.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imposed in school, but one of the best ways to learn about the industrial revolution

[jalenv_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The most depressing thing about Charles Dickens' Hard Times is how little has changed about the attitude of the rich for the working class even though it's getting closer to two centuries since it was first published.Some of the revelations were no surprise, but that didn't matter. My favorite parts were when Thomas Gradgrind, Senior, discovered the results his teaching of nothing but facts have had on two of his pupils.There are plenty of reasons to become outraged on characters' behalf and several characters well worth detesting.Mr. Tull's narration was good.

[elfortunawe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times is, first and foremost, a social satire. Though he uses a dramatic story and interesting characters to encapsulate his ideas, the narrative often takes a back seat to the point Dickens is trying to make.Though it's present in all of his work, this method is particularly apparent in Hard Times. Some find this irritating, but I didn't have any problems with it. You could say it detracts from the story, but if all you're looking for is a fun story, then you shouldn't be reading Dickens.Hard Times levels a number of critiques ate the society of the day, but the primary focus is the philosophy of Utilitarianism, embodied by Thomas Gradrind. Utilitarianism was a popular philosophy at the time, and Dickens detested it, obviously. In the book, he provides an example of the effects such a philosophy would have on society if allowed free reign.Note should be made of Louisa Gradgrind, whose upbringing under the auspices of her father, Thomas Grandgrind, was modeled after that of John Stuart Mill, who developed Utilitarianism. Mill, as a result of his education, had a nervous breakdown at the age of twenty, and Dickens uses this, in the character of Louisa, to provide the final blow to his attack on Mill's philosophy.This is a book about ideas, not characters and narrative. The characters in the book, as in all of Dickens' work, are certainly memorable, and the story does a good job carrying the reader along. But Hard Times main value is in it's defense of humanity against mindless systems.

[twomoredays · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

've always had somewhat of a dysfunctional relationship with Charles Dickens. I remember, when I was somewhere around the age of seven, I was determined to read Oliver Twist, but being only seven the book was completely impossible. I didn't encounter Dickens again until my eighth grade language arts class where, instead of getting to read A Tale of Two Cities like I wanted to, I was forced to endure Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Maybe that's where my incessant dislike of Austen began. Finally, I read a small bit of Great Expectations for my freshman English class in high school. I never finished it, though I can't say it was completely miserable.Considering that tedious history, I was not exactly thrilled about having to face yet another Charles Dickens novel, but Hard Times turned out to be quite the surprise. While it took a few pages to get into, I ended up rather liking the novel. As books for humanities go, it was simple and straight forward and I liked the story, the implications, and the symbolism.For a class, this one gets a thumbs up.

[powderfinger69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The message of Hard Times rings very true today. "...that there i[s] a love in the world, not all [S]elf-intere[s]t after all, but [s]omething very different...." However, this was by far the most difficult Dickens read that I can remember. Reading the sections where his satire of the Utilitarians is at its thickest at times feels like walking through quicksand in order to follow the plot. The story is simple and you cannot miss his point, but everything slogs.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am a big fan of Dickens, but this one was a disappointment for me. Like many of his novels, he is making a commentary on society. In this case, he is criticizing the trend of memorizing facts in education and society's movement toward industrialization. Two of the main characters, siblings Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are brought up to memorize facts and ignore stories and imaginative fancy. They end up being socially dysfunctional; in Louisa's case she is unable to build emotional ties and Tom becomes a complete selfish boor. What this novel was missing is what Dickens does so well in his other books. The characters seemed flat and one-dimensional. Where were the memorable supporting characters like Uriah Heep, or Jenny Wren? The book felt preachy, especially the ending, and lacked the usual humor and warmth for me. My least favorite Dickens so far.

[rachellwin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Louisa Gradgrind and her brother grow up in mid-19th century London filled with nothing by facts, law, discipline, and capitalism. As a result, Louisa enters into a loveless marriage to an ass of an older man, her brother turns to the seedier side of life, while the orphan child, Sissy, who made her home with the Gradgrinds after being deserted by her circus performing father seems to grow into the woman that Louisa should have become. A treatise on the importance of beauty, imagination, and human compassion triumphing over the then-burgeoning trend toward the mechanization of society, Hard Times is a typical Dickens novel with wonderful - and extensive - wordplay, lively dialogue, and a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. Definitely for the advanced reader, I recommend this book for the young adult section of a public library especially because of its place in classical literature.

[la2bkk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Dickens' novel, admittedly my choice as it is considerably shorter than any of his other major works. There were sections I found very entertaining- his reputation for conveying humor and biting social commentary is well earned. That said, I didn't find the actual story line particularly compelling and would have preferred more emphasis on fewer characters. All in all, an enjoyable but not outstanding book.

[mbmackay · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Dickens' 10th full length novel and far from his best. Essentially a polemic against harsh employers, early unions and the unhealthy dirt of newly industrialised cities, the book seems to miss most targets. The main characters seem even more one dimensional than usual - Gradgrind is a a great name for the grinding teacher, but as a character, he fails to be believable. His daughter, Louise, marries the mill owner Bounderby (another great name, but equally a failure as a character) and their marriage forms one of the central themes. In my Dickens marathon over the last 6 months or so, I am yet to find a normal, happy, productive marriage. Louise's marriage is worse than most depicted by Dickens, loveless and unequal, but I find it telling that there are NO normal marriages in such an extensive body of fiction. Read May 2012.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although there was a lot that I really liked about this book, I didn't find it quite as compelling as some of Dickens' other novels (such as 'A Tale of Two Cities'). Partly this is due to the fact that I had some trouble deciphering the way Dickens wrote the English north country accent of several of the characters, which made this novel slightly less accessible than others of his that I have read. On the plus side, Dickens' view of life in a Northern manufacturing town and his characters are (as usual) extremely well-written. In particular, it was satisfying to me that Gradgrind and Bounderby, great figures of pomposity, each got their comeuppance. Gradgrind becomes reformed and turns out to be not so terrible as misguided. Bounderby is humiliated by the revelation that he had been lying about his humble origins.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dickens' novel Hard Times presents some of the themes common to Dickens. There is a young child, Sissy Jupe, whose father abandons her. And we have yet another example of mal-education with the system of Thomas Gradgrind, "facts, facts, facts". Dickens creates interest with deft touches like the scene of Gradgrind's children, Louisa and Thomas, finding their imaginations stirred (perhaps for the first time) at the sight of a Circus. This does not last for long -- not in the family of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, who runs it just as sternly and irrationally rational as his school. Stir in some colorful supporting characters and we have the start of a rather interesting story. I find the novel to be surprisingly readable. There is something to be said for Dickens' economy of words, paragraphs and chapters as compared with most of his earlier (and later) novels. Unfortunately the economy is achieved at the expense of fun, the wonderfully wild and jovial, bumbling blunderbusses and curious characters that made much of Dickens so much fun are not present (sad!). That having been said it is a fine sentimental story -- ironic in its' aggressive stance against sentiment. The character of Louisa, in particular, seems to be one of Dickens' favorite types: the young woman beset by fate sharing her plight with the likes of Esther Summerson. She comes up short as does this novel in most aspects, when compared with the rest of Dickens' oeuvre.

[intromit · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I loved many of Dickens' other works - "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities" are excellent - but "Hard Times" is an awful read. I found it to be pretentious. It is currently sitting on my self with a book mark about three-quarters of the way through it. I won't finish it.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel by Dickens. His tone is more caustic than usual, but as always, the social satire, fabulous characters, and complex plot are great. No one names characters like Dickens did!

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times by Charles Dickens explores and exposes the working conditions in the factories of Northern England in the 1850’s. Dickens was obviously a forward thinker and many of his novels point out conditions that needed improving, in Hard Times he turns his attention on the ambitious businessmen, the educators, the gentry and the would-be gentry who take advantage and exploit the workers. First and foremost, Hard Times appears to be a critique of the politics and economics of the day. Contrary to the Temperance Leagues and Sabbatarians, he believed that hard-working people deserved recreational pursuits to relieve the tedium and stress of their workaday lives. It is also apparent that he felt that children need to be encouraged to use their imagination, that fairy tales and make believe are important to their development. This is the shortest of his novels and is set in the fictitious industrial town of Coketown where the factories belch smoke all day and soot covers the landscape. The subject matter is as dark as the setting, as we read of abuse, suppression and betrayal. This is not a book to read for it’s happy ending, being much darker than David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. The characters on these pages do not get a chance to turn their lives around. I read Hard Times in installment form just as it was originally published in 1854 and although it is a socially conscious, agenda-drive book, there is also a good story here about the citizens of Coketown, many with the wonderfully descriptive names that Dickens bestows upon his characters. Being a shorter book kept the focus on moving the story along and, rather than pages of description or long winded asides, the prose was stylish and clever. As a fan of Dickens, I enjoyed both the fine writing and the sharp social criticism that one comes to expect of this author.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aw, guys, don't pick on Dickens. (And you BEST not be dickin on Pickens.) This is a great-hearted novel, that reminds us just to be kind to one another first of all, and fight the injustice we can see. And sure, Dickens is a bleeding-heart liberal, and sure, it's unforgivable the way he represents the union movement, via Slackbridge, as venal and exploitative. But the accomplishments of the unions in the 19th and 20th centuries (I miss solidarity), much as they wouldn't have come about without that good strong ethic of martial socialism, also wouldn't have come about if they hadn't endeavoured in a world made ready for them by debatechangers like Boz. You need both sides. And sure, yes, there's also the argument that that kind of liberalism undermines the potential for real change; but tell that to all the people who suffered a little bit less after the Poor Laws were repealed. You need both sides.

And like how we forgive Atticus Finch for not challenging Jim Crow, a current reading can easily enough put its hand over its heart and salute the good in Dickens for making a stand, without buying in completely--certainly we'll ignore his "let them eat Christianity" for the poor at every opportunity, his failure to really challenge class privilege--we'll read against him, and recognize with a righteous anger the way that class influences the fates, respectively, of Harthouse, Tom Gradgrind, and Stephen Blackpool. And acknowledge the truth of the representation.

My sister says that university students pick on Dickens because of that thing where you hate what you are--and what do they do but talk about the oppressed from a position of privilege? Dickens is of course guilty as charged on that score, Marx himself also gave him credit for making caring respectable for the self-interested middle classes. And Hard Times was his major salvo.

He fought the injustice he could see. Better champagne socialism than no socialism at all.

[rosecityreader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times by Charles Dickens is one of the many Victorian Era classics that I have never gotten around to reading. But thanks to an audio version new on the shelf of my library branch, it made it to the top of my TBR pile. In equal parts good old fashioned storytelling and outdated social criticism, Hard Times is the tale of the Gradgrind family and their struggle to reconcile the rational, fact-based side of life with the emotional and imaginative side. Thomas Gradgrind, Sr. is proud of his “system” of raising children – his own and those in the school he runs – to know and depend only on facts, with no “wondering” or amusement. The ultimate failure of his system leads to the final showdown and resolution of the story.Dickens packed the book (first published in installments in 1854) full of his usual over-the-top characters. These really came to life in the audio version. Along with some Victorian moralizing, he mixed in plenty of humor and even a little intrigue and adventure. None of the characters are particularly likeable, perhaps especially to a modern reader with less sympathy for the outmoded social constraints under which the characters labor, but they all get their just deserts -- for good or ill -- in the end. Despite its age, Hard Times remains thoroughly entertaining.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times is Charles Dickens shortest work at 277 pages and is unlike his other novels because it is set in a fictional city called Coketown, an industrial city with its pollution and social disparities. The book features trade unions and the divide between capitalism and labor. The book is structured as three parts, Sowing, Reaping and Garnering based on the Bible verse, “as a man sows, so shall he reap” and on The Book Of Ruth who garners what is left in the field after the reaping is done. The characters are Professor Gradgrind who worships “facts” and raises his daughter and son only on facts and no love or pleasure. He places his son Tom in service with Mr. Bounderby, a braggart and lier. He also marries his daughter to this older man. Mr Gradgrind takes in a child of the circus, Sissy Jupe to try to educate her after her father leaves without notice. And finally Stephen Blackpool, a noble man, shunned by his own class, poorly treated by Bounderby and finally accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The book is an indictment of utilitarian philosophy. This is a fast read for a Dickens book. I enjoyed the story and the characters were fun.

[kswolff · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yuck! Soot, coal, suffering. Rinse, lather, repeat. Even by the standards of Dickens' classic sentimentality for the underdog, this novel is a dud. Probably not the best introduction to Charles Dickens unless you want your child to enjoy the pleasures of never reading again. This novel makes Zola's "Germinal," also about downtrodden coal miners, seem like a work of candy-colored upbeat positivity.

[xleptodactylous · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing
but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else,
and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of
reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any
service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own
children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these
children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

[belgrade18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not one of Dickens' best, though Dickens is still one of the best writers of the 19th century, even when he was writing as a hack. It was made more interesting a read in this day and age of Tea Partiers and puritanical Evangelicals who hate the thought of paying taxes for the public good, it reminded me that these things are cyclical. A quick read, though, so if you've got it in front of you, give it a shot.

[niecierpek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very sentimental and very didactic novel Dickens wrote to expose the evils of industrial revolution and the difficult situation of the factory workers, as well as to satirize utilitarianism- men as machines idea. My feeling was that it was uneven: there were some great, satirical portrayals of male characters there, but much weaker and mostly idealistic female ones. The same can be said about the plot development: some great twists interspersed with really weak moments. So, hardly a masterpiece I would say, but on the whole, an enjoyable read (listen) with great moments to a good performance.

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of Dickens' lesser known works, Hard Times for These Times is similar to his other works in that it touches upon societal problems of the day, such as poverty. I read this about five years ago and while I recall enjoying it, I am fuzzy on the details. I think it is well worth a re-read though and since I am recommending it to myself again, I would definitely recommend to others!

[read4to4live · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I saw this audiobook from the library I thought, "Ugh. Not this one." I have some vague recollection of reading Hard Times once -- or trying -- but remember nothing except the bitter aftertaste. Did I give up after the first few pages? Did I skim it for a test and then forget it? Are parts of it written in a dialect that is hard to read with your eyeballs? When I started listening to it in the car, it was awfully slow and dry; but the reader was so good I kept listening. By the end, I was riveted. Was Dickens meant to be read aloud? The narrator Frederick Davidson did a tremendous job with the comic character Mrs. Sparsit; but he also added realism to scenes that might have seemed overly dramatic on the page, such as Louisa's breakdown. My favorite scene to hear was the night Rachel watched over Stephen and his wife, and his tearful promise to her the next day. This audiobook was a great introduction to Dickens and makes me want to hear more.As a side note, I found some similarities between the themes of this story and Mansfield Park. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with making facts part of education; the problem is facts without principle or purpose or thoughtfulness or analysis. Mr. Gradgrind's refusal to teach morality and his regrets over the consequences reminded me of Sir Thomas, the father in Mansfield Park: "Sir Thomas, poor Sir Thomas, a parent, and conscious of errors in his own conduct as a parent, was the longest to suffer. He felt that he ought not to have allowed the marriage; that his daughter's sentiments had been sufficiently known to him to render him culpable in authorising it; that in so doing he had sacrificed the right to the expedient . . . These were reflections that required some time to soften . . . the anguish arising from the conviction of his own errors in the education of his daughters was never to be entirely done away . . . [He] clearly saw that he had but increased the evil by teaching them to repress their spirits in his presence so as to make their real disposition unknown to him . . . Here had been grievous mismanagement; but, bad as it was, he gradually grew to feel that it had not been the most direful mistake in his plan of education. Something must have been wanting within, or time would have worn away much of its ill effect. He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting . . . Bitterly did he deplore a deficiency which now he could scarcely comprehend to have been possible. Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper."Other similarities between the two stories are the theme of an ineffectual mother, providing no balance to the father's system of education; the vain, rich playboy who chases women without considering the consequences (Henry Crawford, Jem Harthouse); the poor girl taken into the family who becomes the heart of the family (Fanny, Sissy); and the father's increasing love and value for that girl who has grown up under his protection, but free from the influence of his system of education. In some ways, the father is the driving force of both stories: the consequences of his mistakes drive the narrative; his acceptance of those mistakes provide the conclusion. Of course, Louisa and Maria are very different characters, but they have both married men they can't stand -- so where does Louisa's sense of honor derive, when Maria's is absent? Either it was just innate, or her father's love and constant attention, though often misplaced, still supported some sort of moral grounding that Maria never possessed, or that Mrs. Norris strangled in the cradle.Mrs. Norris has no alter ego in Hard Times, at least not in the children's upbringing; however Mrs. Sparsit certainly exerted an similarly evil influence. Bounderby was happy with Louisa until Mrs. Sparsit persuaded him he should not be; for someone who expressed so much shock at Stephen Blackpool's desire to divorce his wife, her hypocrisy in actively undermining the marriage is appalling. But, her hypocrisy is not out of character, when you consider that in neither case was she motivated by morality, but rather by a desire to exert influence and express contempt.