Scarica Hard times - Charles Dickens e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! HARD TIMES CHARLES DICKENS He was born on the 7th February 1812 in Portsmouth. During his childhood he had to go to work at the age of 12 to sustain the finances of his family (his father was arrested due to some debts). As soon as they improved, he went to school for a very short time in London. At 15 he became a shorthand for a lawyer’s studio: it was the beginning of report because he had to write fast and shortly the news or the content of a meeting. At 20 he became a famous shorthand and reporter of parliamentary debates and he begun to work as a reporter for a newspaper. A year later he published his first short story in a magazine (it was like a work in progress: the stories were published little by little and changed between the publishments in order to change some details if readers wrote some comments about them or showed disappointment) under the name “Boyz”-people and places of London were described in a very short and ironic way. The collection was named “Sketches by Boyz”. This collection received so much consent that he published a new part in 1836- stories of children or of people starting poor and becoming independent. The main characters were poor people and middle-class workers. He was against the exploitation of working classes. characters Dicken’s characters are caricatures of English people (middle class people and children of the working classes) created by exaggeration of their habits. aim His aim was to arouse readers’ interest by creating caricatures. Moreover, his works had a didactic aim: he wanted readers to understand social problems in order to know something more about the poorest social classes. language Dickens managed to employ the most effective language and accomplish the most detailed and powerful descriptions by choosing carefully the adjectives, repeating words and structures and combining images and ideas. In his works we can fine a realistic description of facts, but not in a realistic and objective way (omniscient narrator). The reader is guided on the opinion he should have about facts and characters. attitude he had a critical attitude towards the society, related to the spiritual corruption of daily reality under the impact of industrialism. He was socially committed, he wanted to change his society by writing his works. HARD TIMES The best description of the condition of the poor classes in England during the mid- 19th century. It consists in a detailed and photographic description of the awful conditions of working classes and the industrial towns. The narration isn’t objective, as we perceive a strongly satirical and sarcastic approach to the situations described. The narrator is omniscient, he provides comments and expresses his sense of morality thus defining “right” and “wrong” behaviours. didactic aim: to inform and educate the wealthier and ruling classes and let them aware of the conditions of the poor classes, of whom they know very little or nothing. MAIN CHARACTERS Mr Gradgrind is an educator who has founded a school where he wants students to learn only facts and statistics, what is factual, practical, concrete and useful. In this school, there’s no room for feelings, creativity or imagination (Dickens expose his critique against the materialistic and the utilitarian approach to learning and economy). Mr Bounderby is a rich banker of the city and a factory owner to whom Gradgrind wants his daughter Louisa to be married. The girl is 30 years younger than Josiah Bounderby and the marriage for convenience proves to be unhappy. Louisa is Mr Bounderby daughter; she is kind-hearted girl who consents to marry Josiah Bounderby just to help her brother find a job at Bounderby’s bank Tom is Mr Bounderby’s son; he is a selfish, boastful and lazy boy who gets the job but robs his employer and is later obliged to leave the country Stephen Blackpool is an honest factory worker working for Bounderby. He wants to earn an honest living and refuses to join a workers’ union because he believes striking only spoils relations between factory owners and employees; he also refuses to spy on his fellow workers for Bounderby and is sent away from the factory. STRUCTURE AND LANGUAGE It is divided in three books (Dickens creates analogies with the world of farming- use of figurative language) • Sowing: about Mr Gradgrind’s education of children (metaphor: sowing the seeds) • Reaping: about the calamitous effects of education, Louisa’s unhappy marriage, Tom’s criminal ways and Stephen’s dismissal (metaphor: the harvesting of seeds) • Garnering: About the instability of the educational and economic system on which Coketown is based; this is no longer a solid ground on which Grandgrind had initially relied. He eventually understands the damage he has caused and gives up his philosophy- The book ironically recalls the Biblical «what a man sows, that he will also reap» To hint at the characters’ personalities, Dickens uses caricatures and exaggerations (he exaggerates their habits and traits to satirise them) • Mr Gradgrind (grade: evaluate/grind: crush into powder) : the one who destroys school and education) • Mr Choakumchild: the teacher at Mr Gradgrind’s school (to choke / child: to choke students / to make them unable to breathe) THEMES • The difference between the rich and the poor at Dickens’s time • Criticism of industrialisation, materialism and utilitarianism The story is set in Coketown, an imaginary industrial mill town (textile manufacturing town), which stands for a real industrial town in Victorian England (COKE: fuel made from coal)
