Hard Times, By Charles Dickens: "Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."

By Charles Dickens

Hard Times is Charles Dickens’s tenth novel that has been considered most seriously by literary critics and historians. It concentrates on the portrayal of the English society of the nineteenth century as well as on its different cultural and economic aspects. The story, which is set in a fictional Victorian town, is divided into three parts which are respectively entitled “Sowing,” “Reaping,” and “Garnering.” The central character of the first part is Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy man, a school headmaster and a father to 5 children. Generally, Mr. Gradgrind is a man of reason and thought, but also of strict rules and codes of behavior. The narrative gives minute details of his daily activities and habits as well as of the way he brings up his children, teaching them principles of rationalism and self-interest. The story then follows the existence of his children and family in the remaining parts of the novel. Dickens mainly deals with the much-debated social issues of the time such as the importance of professional careers, love and marriage. By the end of the narrative, Mr. Gradgrind eventually seems to become less categorical as to his strict principles of rationalism and utilitarianism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Word To The Wise
• Release date: Sep 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780006109

Charles Dickens

Considered by many to be the greatest novelist of the English language, Charles John Hummham Dickens was born Februrary 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. Some of his most populars works include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.

Book preview

BOOK THE FIRST - SOWING

CHAPTER I - THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

‘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 school-room, 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 gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

CHAPTER II - MURDERING THE INNOCENTS

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 supposititious, 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, 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 white-washed 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 self-same 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.  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; always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus, 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, 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) 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 - ‘

‘Ay, ay, ay!  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 Fancy 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 use,’ 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. M’Choakumchild,’ 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. M’Choakumchild, we only wait for you.’

So, Mr. M’Choakumchild 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.  He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions.  Orthography, 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, 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 Water Sheds 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, M’Choakumchild.  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:  looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained.  Say, good M’Choakumchild.  When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

CHAPTER 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, 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 black board 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!  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, and driven Charles’s Wain 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:  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, fire-proof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts 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 looked as though they might have been broken from the parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names; and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness’ sake, that the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped it!

Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind.  He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would probably have described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as ‘an eminently practical’ father.  He had a particular pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have a special application to him.  Whatsoever the public meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind.  This always pleased the eminently practical friend.  He knew it to be his due, but his due was acceptable.

He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of music.  The clashing and banging band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray.  A flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was ‘Sleary’s Horse-riding’ which claimed their suffrages.  Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money.  Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act.  Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to ‘elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog Merrylegs.’  He was also to exhibit ‘his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.’  The same Signor Jupe was to ‘enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.’  Lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William Button, of Tooley Street, in ‘the highly novel and laughable hippo-comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford.’

Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction.  But, the turning of the road took him by the back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a number of children were congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place.

This brought him to a stop.  ‘Now, to think of these vagabonds,’ said he, ‘attracting the young rabble from a model school.’

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the young rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look for any child he knew by name, and might order off.  Phenomenon almost incredible though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act!

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said:

‘Louisa!!  Thomas!!’

Both rose, red and disconcerted.  But, Louisa looked at her father with more boldness than Thomas did.  Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home like a machine.

‘In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; ‘what do you do here?’

‘Wanted to see what it was like,’ returned Louisa, shortly.

‘What it was like?’

‘Yes, father.’

There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl:  yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression.  Not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them, analogous to the changes on a blind face groping its way.

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would seem to become a woman all at once.  Her father thought so as he looked at her.  She was pretty.  Would have been self-willed (he thought in his eminently practical way) but for her bringing-up.

‘Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult to believe that you, with your education and resources, should have brought your sister to a scene like this.’

‘I brought him, father,’ said Louisa, quickly.  ‘I asked him to come.’

‘I am sorry to hear it.  I am very sorry indeed to hear it.  It makes Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, Louisa.’

She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her cheek.

‘You!  Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; Thomas and you, who may be said to be replete with facts; Thomas and you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here!’ cried Mr. Gradgrind.  ‘In this degraded position!  I am amazed.’

‘I was tired, father.  I have been tired a long time,’ said Louisa.

‘Tired?  Of what?’ asked the astonished father.

‘I don’t know of what - of everything, I think.’

‘Say not another word,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind.  ‘You are childish.  I will hear no more.’  He did not speak again until they had walked some half-a-mile in silence, when he gravely broke out with:  ‘What would your best friends say, Louisa?  Do you attach no value to their good opinion?  What would Mr. Bounderby say?’  At the mention of this name, his daughter stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense and searching character.  He saw nothing of it, for before he looked at her, she had again cast down her eyes!

‘What,’ he repeated presently, ‘would Mr. Bounderby say?’  All the way to Stone Lodge, as with grave indignation he led the two delinquents home, he repeated at intervals ‘What would Mr.  Bounderby say?’ - as if Mr. Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy.

CHAPTER IV - MR. BOUNDERBY

NOT being Mrs. Grundy, who was Mr. Bounderby?

Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment.  So near was Mr. Bounderby - or, if the reader should prefer it, so far off.

He was a rich man:  banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not.  A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh.  A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him.  A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up.  A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start.  A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man.  A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty.  A man who was the Bully of humility.

A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr.  Bounderby looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have had the seven or eight added to it again, without surprising anybody.  He had not much hair.  One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being constantly blown about by his windy boastfulness.

In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the hearthrug, warming himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby delivered some observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance of its being his birthday.  He stood before the fire, partly because it was a cool spring afternoon, though the sun shone; partly because the shade of Stone Lodge was always haunted by the ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus took up a commanding position, from which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind.

‘I hadn’t a shoe to my foot.  As to a stocking, I didn’t know such a thing by name.  I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty.  That’s the way I spent my tenth birthday.  Not that a ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch.’

Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch?

‘No!  As wet as a sop.  A foot of water in it,’ said Mr. Bounderby.

‘Enough to give a baby cold,’ Mrs. Gradgrind considered.

‘Cold?  I was born with inflammation of the lungs, and of everything else, I believe, that was capable of inflammation,’ returned Mr. Bounderby.  ‘For years, ma’am, I was one of the most miserable little wretches ever seen.  I was so sickly, that I was always moaning and groaning.  I was so ragged and dirty, that you wouldn’t have touched me with a pair of tongs.’

Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most appropriate thing her imbecility could think of doing.

‘How I fought through it, I don’t know,’ said Bounderby.  ‘I was determined, I suppose.  I have been a determined character in later life, and I suppose I was then.  Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody to thank for my being here, but myself.’

Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his mother -

‘My mother?  Bolted, ma’am!’ said Bounderby.

Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave it up.

‘My mother left me to my grandmother,’ said Bounderby; ‘and, according to the best of my remembrance, my grandmother was the wickedest and the worst old woman that ever lived.  If I got a little pair of shoes by any chance, she would take ‘em off and sell ‘em for drink.  Why, I have known that grandmother of mine lie in her bed and drink her four-teen glasses of liquor before breakfast!’

Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of vitality, looked (as she always did) like an indifferently executed transparency of a small female figure, without enough light behind it.

‘She kept a chandler’s shop,’ pursued Bounderby, ‘and kept me in an egg-box.  That was the cot of my infancy; an old egg-box.  As soon as I was big enough to run away, of course I ran away.  Then I became a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me.  They were right; they had no business to do anything else.  I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest.  I know that very well.’

His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast.

‘I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind.  Whether I was to do it or not, ma’am, I did it.  I pulled through it, though nobody threw me out a rope.  Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown.  Those are the antecedents, and the culmination.  Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the direction of a drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant.  Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your model schools, and your training schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all right, all correct - he hadn’t such advantages - but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people - the education that made him won’t do for everybody, he knows well - such and such his education was, however, and you may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the facts of his life.’

Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown stopped.  He stopped just as his eminently practical friend, still accompanied by the two young culprits, entered the room.  His eminently practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, and gave Louisa a reproachful look that plainly said, ‘Behold your Bounderby!’

‘Well!’ blustered Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter?  What is young Thomas in the dumps about?’

He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa.

‘We were peeping at the circus,’ muttered Louisa, haughtily, without lifting up her eyes, ‘and father caught us.’

‘And, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband in a lofty manner, ‘I should as soon have

Reviews for Hard Times, By Charles Dickens

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[joeydag · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

We read an excerpt from this novel in a children's lit class as there is a scene from an extreme sort of facts only, pragmatist education. I wanted to see where the novel went from there. I was somewhat disappointed in this is a pretty straight forward criticism of industrial England in the the early 1800's. Very melodramatic. Not Dickens at his best.

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is peculiarly short for Dickens, sandwiched sequentially between the bulky Bleak House and longer Little Dorrit. It doesn't make for faster pacing. The introduction to my edition bemoans how slow it is through the first two thirds, blaming that for its dull reception upon publication. Perhaps Dickens knew he had a less popular work on his hands and decided to cut his losses with a shorter work. Or perhaps he sensed how much dark was being reflected as his marriage was in the throes of collapse and he needed a quicker escape from it.

The social message targets here are primarily education and the industrial age, paired nicely since Dickens paints them both as tarnished by unrelenting repetition and regimen, drained of colour. He doesn't draw a direct line between them, but it isn't hard to imagine Gradgrind's system as the perfect factory for churning out mindless drones and aspiring businessmen as grist for the more literal version. The tone feels more didactic than his other novels to this point, filled with portents and warnings. Dickens dispenses with any budding romance in the wings, and the typically happy fates he dispenses to his characters are drawn thin and pale. Mr. Sleary stands as the lone representative of Dickens' lighter novels, but his presence is minimal. His slurred speech feels symbolic, as if Dickens holds him retained behind a frosted glass. There's some maturity in this novel, a staying of sentimentality that could be read as a more serious literary effort. It can also be read, ironically, as Dickens giving in to some of the Gradgrind school himself, at the cost of his more joyful indulgences.

[alisony-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From Hardy's Victorian England of gentle walks amongst the furze on the heath to Dicken's Victorian England of dark, polluted skies above smoky industrial northern towns. Ah, Dickens loves a bit of dreariness!

Hard Times is a right hook in the face of class snobbery and prejudice. It opens with a couple of pompous middle-aged men delighting in pontificating on the merits of facts in the total absence of feelings, fancies or fun. Their lives are governed by arrogant decisions and judgments made on their skewed version of facts, with their assessments of people's characters clouded entirely by their class prejudice around the honesty and capability of those less fortunate than themselves. Ruling their families and homes with a cold and efficient lack of sentimentality, Dickens ultimately teaches these old fools a harsh lesson in what's actually important in life (although sadly one is too far gone with his own sense of self-worth and importance to ever change).

Although quite bleak in places, and in true Victorian style faintly ridiculous at times (pass me the smelling salts - again), I loved the ultimate message of this book. Dickens is very clever at engineering an exposition of the truth that real wealth lies in goodness and happiness, and rounds off the novel nicely with the very people who were most looked down on at the beginning of the book being the characters who ultimately are proven to have the truest riches.

This is only my second Dickens novel, and I didn't love it just as much as Great Expectations, but once I got into the swing of it I still enjoyed it.

4 stars - some particularly unlikeable characters, but a great jaunt all the same.

[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.

[electrascaife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dickens shows us the lives of several characters in Coketown, from a father who teaches strict belief in fact and will brook no wonder in his children, to children themselves who lead tortured lives because of this theory of education, to a blustering banker who is always too happy to brag about his humble beginnings, to a handful of the humble but good working folk of the town. Their lives intermesh in various ways over the course of several years.

Although there's barely one character in the novel whom I could think of without a good eyeroll, Dickens still weaves a tale that I couldn't resist following through to the end. I love that the wicked don't necessarily get their comeuppance, and the happiness due the good guys isn't completely pure - the complexities of the plot see to that - and despite my misgivings at the beginning, I'm glad that I stuck with it and quite enjoyed it by the end.

[philsyphe · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Nearly every Dickens book I’ve read has been a disappointment. “Hard Times” is no exception.

I like the author’s humour, but it doesn’t surface enough in this novel.

Apart from a few good scenes here and there, most of the time I was bored with overlong descriptions, with too much “telling” and not enough “showing”.

I respect Charles Dickens for his high status as an author, and I wish I liked his writing style because of this, but – alas! – I don’t.

[librisissimo · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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I know it's a classic and the literary mavens love it, but it's dense and depressing.
 

[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 Louisa
oddly 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 character
once 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?"

[bridgey_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times - Charles Dickens ***

Dickens has always been one of those authors that I have to force myself to pick up, but usually once I make a committed effort I really do enjoy his books. I know it is going to be hard work, but usually the reward when I finish the novel justifies the means. Over the years I have read half a dozen or so of his works, and pretty much found them to my liking. Hard Times is one of his lesser known novels and one that I was totally unfamiliar with so I had no idea what to expect.

So what is it about? Set in the fictional area of Coketown (allegedly based on Preston) we follow the lives of the inhabitants. The poor working and their tribulations, and the rich who have strong ideals on how the rest of society should act. All are trapped within the industrial revolution, but obviously some fare from it better than others. As usual with Dickens we see things from both sides of the spectrum. The wealthy side being Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounder, a pair of gentlemen that only deal with facts and not emotions and believed these virtues should be instilled on the rest of society. The impoverished side encompasses Stephen Blackpool, a hard working man that has fallen upon hard times and cannot see a way out unless he is treated as an equal with those more fortunate. Throw into the mix a few dodgy dealings by Tom Gradgrind (Mr Gradgrind’s eldest son) and you have the outline of the book. Although even after sitting down and reading the damn thing I still struggled to describe it.

What did I like? I suppose the descriptions of the town and working conditions were pretty spot on and gave a vivid impression of the times. I also liked some of the characters, Dickens always has a way of making them stand out with their own personalities so that you can almost feel what they are thinking.


What didn’t I like? Most if it if I am truthfully honest. The story dragged on and on and on, I never really felt as if it was going anywhere in particular. Some of the parts were almost forgotten about (such as the married life of Mr Bounderby & Louisa) and the reader is just left wondering especially as these events were such an integral part of the early plotlines. I can read most things and battle through, but the literary device of writing peoples speech in dialect is one of my peeves, it makes it even worse in Hard Times as one of the characters, Mr Sleary, also speaks with a lisp. I found myself having to reread whole chapters just to try and decipher what was being said, whilst other people’s speech reflects a sort of dodgy Northern accent, some people may find it adds to the authenticity I just find it bloody annoying. In reality I think this book was written as a way of Dickens getting something off his chest. It could almost be described as one long rant from beginning to end, and there is nothing wrong with that, but at least make it interesting. At times it really did just bore me to tears and I was tempted to just Google the ending and save myself some time, but I did stick it out even though the 300 pages seemed more like a few thousand. Not one of his books I will ever revisit or recommend.
A fair 3 stars, I couldn’t give it more for obvious reasons, and to be fair I don’t think Dickens could ever deserve less, even if the book wasn’t to my own personal taste.

[siok-76276 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sissy Jupe and Stephen Blackpool are the two characters that stand out. Sissy is fearless when she does what she thinks is right and the best; Stephen is fearless in keeping a promise. They are the ones who touch you.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[piyushc_34 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well, all in all, it was very Dickensish , and while I enjoyed parts of the book immensely, as a package, I found it wanting. The ending, specially was so very hurried and abrupt.

*Spoiler Alert*

For instance, there is no explanation given for Mrs. Sparsit's intense dislike for Mr. Bounderby or for Louise. And despite her intense dislike for Mr. Bounderby, she goes to all that trouble to find and drag the old woman from her village.

There are many for such instances which don't make much sense or don't seem to add any value to the plot.

I got the feeling that she was always play acting. I agree on the "she wanted things to carry on as usual", but seeing how little Louisa generally cared, she need not have shown the conduct she did...and as a scorned woman, why take the trouble of finding the old woman, about whom she didn't know anything.

Well, for me it was just one of those books, that just doesn't click. Maybe my next Dickens would be better.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”

Having read and enjoyed several of Dickens's other works I felt that it was about time that I read this one and to be brutally frank was rather disappointed with it, it was certainly not up to his usually high standards. It felt rushed and reading of Dickens's history it apparently was as he had intended to take a year off from writing but money problems gave him little alternative but to carry on.

Now I really enjoyed the opening with Thomas Gradgrind wishing to teach the children of his school and family 'Facts' and nothing but 'Facts' and the taking in of the circus girl Sissy Jupe but unfortunately these two characters were pretty well sidelined until the end of the story and instead we had the meek, lifeless daughter Louisa and her windbag, braggart, factory owning husband Bounderby. The villain of the piece Tom Gridgrind and his victim ,factory worker Stephen Blackpool were interesting but only thinly portrayed.

Now it could be argued that due to its brevity that it is a good introduction to Dickens's other works but I feel that this would just be lazy. It lacked the comedic quality of some of his other works and even if it was seen as a statement on Victorian society and in particular its education I personally feels that it falls short there as well due to a lack of real plot depth.

Overall an OK read but not one of the author's best.

[fuzzy_patters · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Gradgrind believes in a system of education in which children should be filled with facts and only facts. There is no room for sentiment or imagination. He runs a school that operates in this fashion, and he has raised his children the same way. Since there is no room for sentiment or love in her life, Tom sees know problem with sending his daughter Louisa to marry Bounderby, a cold businessman who is obsessed with the myth that he has pulled himself up from poverty. Likewise, Gradgrind's son, Tom, goes to work for Bounderby in the bank he owns, and Bounderby respects that young Tom is as cold and fact-based as Bounderby and the elder Gradgrind. Meanwhile, someone robs the bank, and Bounderby is obsessed with bringing the robber to justice.

In typical Dickens fashion, many of the characters in this novel exist at extremes, such as Bounderby who cares only about money and facts. This provided Dickens with an opportunity to prove points about the ills that he saw in nineteenth century English society, and it also provides him opportunities for comedic opportunities to poke fun at his characters. While I found the former to to ham-fisted at times, the latter was quite comical and gave the novel a lot of charm.

As a teacher myself, I thought the best part of the book was Dickens's point about the folly of an education that stresses facts and only facts. In our modern era of standards based education as in his time, this approach fosters students who are cold, uncaring, and uncreative. Dickens deftly shows us possible results of producing this kind of student by showing us situations in which his characters flaws lead to tragedy and inhumanity.

[needmoreshelves · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first Dickens novel! (Sad, I know.) The story itself was a little underwhelming, but I enjoyed the character development and was pleasantly surprised at how good a writer Dickens is. This might be my first, but it will definitely not be my last!

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charles Dickens was born 200 years ago this month. To celebrate many BookCrossers decided to read one of his works in February. I decided to listen to this book. I had never heard of it before but I figured I couldn't go too far wrong with anything by Dickens. I especially like listening to his work as the descriptive language really builds a picture in my mind.

This book is unusual in comparison to most of Dickens' work. For one thing, it is set in the north of England and, other than one of the characters being a member of Parliament, no-one bothers with London. It is also quite a bit shorter than most of his novels but you shouldn't think it doesn't have depths. The setting is an industrial town that sounds frankly awful. Smoke stacks spew into the air all day and all night so there is never an unobscured view of the sky. All the houses and buildings are red brick with no decoration. To go with the surroundings the local school teaches only the facts and discourages children from "wondering" about anything. One of the eminent families is the Gradgrinds and Mr. Gradgrind is a trustee of the school. The book opens with the children being quizzed. Sissy, daughter of a man employed in the circus, is asked to describe a horse but she can't do it to the satisfaction of the questioners. She can't give just the facts. Bitzer, one of the star pupils, is able to give a complete description sticking only to the facts and Sissy is recommended to follow his example.

The Gradgrind children, Louisa and Tom, are also pupils of the school and their father is very proud of their learning. Louisa ends up married to one of her father's friends, Mr. Bounderby, mainly because she is unable to think of any other possibilty. She also is prodded into the marriage by Tom who is working in Mr. Bounderby's bank and thinks his life will be much easier if Louisa is married to Bounderby. Tom is a wastrel, given to gambling and drinking.

Dickens brings the working class into the story through the introduction of Stephen Blackpool. Stephen is in love with Rachel but is married to a woman who is a drunkard. Stephen tries to find out from Bounderby if he can dissolve his marriage but is told that he couldn't afford to get an annulment.

These main characters interact and Dickens shows how unsatisfactory utilitarianism is for most humans. The book is more tragic than other Dickens that I have read but I suspect that was his aim. There are some wonderful characterizations and Louisa, Rachel and Sissy are strong characters.

[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.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not one of Dickens's better known novels but seething with his customary descriptive powers, and even more social comment than usual.
The novel is set in Coketown, a fictional city in the North of England renowned for its mills and factories. The novel opens with headmaster Thomas Gradgrind introducing prospective new clients to his school with a speech reminiscent of current Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb, and stressing the importance of facts over sentiment or imagination. Even his own children are subjected to an education in which curiosity is suppressed and learning facts by rote is the only permissible approach.
Gradgrind's closest companion is the odious Josiah Bounderby, a self-made man who is never happier than when extolling the poverty of his childhood and traducing the mother who abandoned him in a ditch when merely an infant. He revels in the poverty of his upbringing and the absence of his own education, and champion's Gradgrind's factual crusade. He also dotes in the most gruesome manner over Louisa, eldest daughter of Gradgrind, and subsequently, following discussions with Mr Gradgrind that more closely resembled a business negotiation than a lover's suit, marries her. Her brother, also called Thomas, comes to work for Bounderby, taking on a role in the bank, though he succumbs to a dangerous addiction to gambling and drinking.
Bounderby is owner of a bank and a mill in Coketown, and his employees are almost shackled, dependent upon the pittance he pays them. However, while most of the workers seem anonymous, one of them is Stephen Blackpool, who loves Rachael, but is married to an unnamed and itinerant alcoholic woman Blackpool refuses to join a trade union, and as a consequence he is sent to Coventry by his colleagues. However, rather than being supported by Bounderby he finds himself given notice to quit. Pledging always to stay true to Rachael he makes his arrangements to leave.
And then someone robs the bank ...

Like all of his more famous novels there is a heavy dose of almost cliched sentiment about this novel, but Dickens does bring his incisive social commentary into play. He attacks every aspect of the workers' thraldom - the paucity of their wages, the conditions in which they have to work, the rampant pollution of the mills, the desperate poverty of available accommodation. Yet despite all this, it is not just a political diatribe but remains enjoyable.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times might be said to be Dickens' reaction to:

- Utilitarianism, the concept pushed by John Stuart Mill and others for "the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people." While the statement ostensibly sounds reasonable, Dickens was concerned that those not in the "greatest number" would suffer great pain, as he and so many others had in the Industrial Revolution.

- Education of children focused on hard facts and dry pragmatism, stifling imagination and higher pursuits, such that they could become better workers in a society geared too much towards capitalism.

- Man's inhumanity to man in materialistic Victorian England.

These social criticisms are all intertwined, and of course are themes in many of Dickens' other works. Hard Times is concentrated; severe space limitations cut the book to about 1/3 his previous four novels, and the result is a focus that some enjoy and others don't. It's not his best but worth a read.

[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!

[readingwithtea · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I hope not all Dickens is like this. If it is, this is going to be a long project, as I keep reading anything other than the next one!

The tale of the Gradgrinds – father, a schoolmaster with a very rigid idea of how children ought to be raised, free of fancy and full of “ologisms”, a mother racked with nerves, a daughter Louisa, who comes to doubt the prosaic quality of her life, Thomas, a lost and petulant gambler, and the adopted daughter Sissy Jupe, whose father abandoned her to their circus colleagues and who was subsequently taken in by the Gradgrind family – had some semblance of a plot, but not much of one.

The majority of page-space was occupied with long and convoluted character descriptions, often highly entertaining, but all the book’s characters are caricatures. Dickens gives us too many opportunities to mock, and the humour rapidly wears thin. One might say that this is a book of redemption – all characters have come to see the error of their ways by the end – but the constant cynicism and ridicule leaves a bitter taste. There was also a superfluity of allusions to contemporary matters, which meant I spent the first twenty pages leaving back and forth to the notes and then giving up, after which I clearly missed at least a third of the jokes.

Please let not all Dickens be like this.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ee n van de betere van Dickens, vooral als historisch-sociaal document.
De sociale aanklacht staat voorop, vooral via Stephen Blackpool, symbool van de oerwijsheid van de arbeider; vakbondsleider Slackbridge wordt sarcastisch beschreven.
Maar dieperliggend wordt ook de arrogantie van de burgerij aan de kaak gesteld (vooral via Bounderby en Harthouse), maar ook het opkomend positivisme (het systeem van Gradgrind).
Boven dat alles zweeft de oerwijsheid van bijbelse figuren als Cecilia en Rachael.

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dear me, two Dickens novels in as many weeks - I must be getting old! His stories are still a little too simplistic for my liking - the good are rewarded, the 'wicked' punished - but I do love his narrative style and wry humour. For Victorian social commentary, particularly about the industrial north, Dickens' friend Mrs Gaskell has the edge, but I can still appreciate this moralistic tale about the sacrifice of humanity as the cost of progress.

Mr Bounderby is my favourite character, inventing a heroic struggle to raise himself out of the gutter where most people would 'improve' their social heritage for effect: 'I passed the day in a ditch and the night in a pigsty. That's the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch.' He reminds me of the Monty Python 'Four Yorkshiremen' sketch - 'I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, and work twenty nine hours a day down t'mill ..' - and his exaggerations are made all the funnier because he is making it all up!

The story is one of Dickens' standard social metaphors, about the family of Mr Gradgrind, presumably a member of the Statistical Society, who raises his children on 'facts alone', and denies them any imagination or amusement; Gradgrind of course representing the industrial north ('Coketown' is based on Preston, Lancashire) and his children the working classes. Bounderby, the 'self-made man' more or less buys Gradgrind's disillusioned daughter, Louisa, as his wife, and she agrees, to benefit her wayward brother, but her heart rebels when she thinks she might have fallen in love with the cynical Jem Harthouse. There's also Old Stephen Blackpool, replete with thick Lancastrian accent, who falls prey to both the greed of the masters and the strength of the unions, and Sissy Jupe, the freespirited circus girl, who is adopted by Gradgrind and helps to become a better man. Characters are where Dickens really triumphs, and I wasn't disappointed here.

Not quite the industrial novel I was expecting, but an amusing read!

[kaydence_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Hard Times gives both sides of the story and shows how neither side is actually as happy as they would hope to be, however, I’d like to just talk about the poor.

The lower class is represented by a factory worker that happens to be married to a woman he doesn’t want to come home to. She has taken to drinking because of her poor life. In this case, she is gone much of the time. He has attempted to help her, but he would rather be rid of her. He asks for help, but is told that he should just live with his decisions because only the rich can get a divorce. At work, he eventually becomes an outcaste because he does not want to join the union. Then he loses his job because he refuses to be a spy. To make matters worse, he is offered help only to find out that he is being set up as a suspect for a future bank robbery. He ends up dying after falling in a well when coming back to clear his good name. This basically states that everything possible can go wrong with the lower class. He cannot be with the one he loves, he can’t fix any of his situations, and then he dies when he is attempting to at least save his reputation.
In Hard Times, Louisa does not go to the working class neighborhoods until she goes to see Stephen after he is fired. At the same time, the working class seemed to feel like they were meant for their position. Stephen is worn out, but he states that he understands his place and accepts it. The critical readings also seem to state that people accept their positions in life because of a social commitment to one another.Dickens describes Coketown as if it is a place made out of brick. Everything is square and nondescript. The school house at the beginning of the book is a square building, the Grandagrind house is a square building, and the bank is as well. There are descriptions of the smoke billowing up from the factories, but the majority of the descriptions are related to fire. Flames are used throughout the story when Louisa and Stephen are mentioned. These flames are throughout each household, but also in relation to the factories. Louisa states something about the factories becoming flames at night.Dickens' focuses more on how the environment represents emotions within the characters and Engel focuses on the social disparities between the rich and the poor. I think that they are basically describing the same thing, but they have different motivations and that effects how everything is discussed. Engel wanted to directly point out a factual portrait to change politics and economics. So, he focused directly upon the conditions of the working class. Dickens’ was not giving a factual representation, but hoping to evoke sentimentality and awareness through his story. This was more blatant than his other stories, but he still is very interested in the development of his characters, and not just a description of the scene.