L'era Vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica L'era Vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The Victorian age The Victorian era takes its name from the queen Victoria, who became queen in 1837, when she was only eighteen, until 1901 when she died, so she ruled the country for 64 years. Her reign was one of positivity and political stability. When she became queen the England empire was already big, it included: America, South Africa, India and Australia. At the time of her death the empire had expanded, so there were same addictions like Western Canada, New Zealand, countries in the South East area and more territories in Africa. Since stability in the ruler makes things easier to accomplish and due to the fact that she was queen for so long, it encouraged people to seek stability also in society. There were a lot of social norms for people to respect, otherwise they were rejected from society. What people did during the day depended on their identity, which was determinate by three factors: RACE, GENDER and CLASS, the combination go these factors influenced what a person could and couldn’t to during the day. Because people sought stability, they believed that everything had its purpose and pale in the universe and that same things were more valuable than others, thy believed in a GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, that explained what things were more important and which were less important. So from the bottom to the top we have: - INANIMATED OBJECTS, like rocks; - PLANTS; - LOWER ANIMALS, like frogs; - HIGHER ANIMALS, like lions; - HUMAN BEINGS; - ANGELS; - GOD. RACE Some people were so obsessed with organization, that they creates also a chain for humans, where race was often equal to nationality. From the bottom to the top we have: - people with different nationalities then British people (asians, africans, first natives, etc); - People who looked like British people, but were not British (italians); - British people People believed the chain to be very accurate and for them it was normal for the British empire to be so big since British people were so important. If you were british you had more possibilities to be successful, like jobs, the right to vote ecc. GENDER There was also a division between males and females, each had a specific place in society. Women were thought to be less tough than men, so they stayed home taking care of the house and the children. Men were tougher and they could live in the outside world and have careers, like in business. This division influenced daily life, like for example a women couldn’t go out without a man with her. CLASS There was a chain also for class. From the bottom to the top we have: - WORKING CLASS, which were the poorest people who often worked in farms and mined, because they were the poorest, they had poor hygiene and struggled to survive; - MIDDLE CLASS, it was formed by professionals, like lawyers and doctors, they were richer than the working class, but less than the upper class and they were not aristocrats; - UPPER CLASS, the richest class with was formed by aristocrats. To highlight the gap between each class, they lived in different places, interacted with different people and wore different clothes. There were a lot of strict social Normas to follow. MORALITY was also a key concept of the time, so there were a lot of rules about what was an appropriate behavior in society, like for speech, manners and clothes. So if someone from a lower class wanted to approach someone from a higher class they should have behaved accordingly. Because of that bon ton was talked about a lot in books. Clothes also indicted which class people were from. Women couldn’t wear clothes that showed parts of their bodies and men had to wear proper clothes, like jackets, ties, etc. Another key concept was CONSUMERISM, in fact the higher class wanted to distinguish themselves from the lower and they showed their wealth especially by buying things, in particular goods from outside the country. The middle class wanted to be like the higher class, so they also tended to buy things to show their wealth. The reign was one of great prosperity and confidence and it encouraged technological and industrial progress. There was the extension of suffrage for people to the middle class, so they began to have a voice in the society. The Victorian age was a period of great contradictions, we speak about VICTORIAN COMPROMISE, because on one side there were extensions and progress, but on the other side there was an increasing of poverty of the conditions of the working class. The division among the three classes became more and more evident. There was a growth in all the field thanks to the technology. One of the most important invention was the railway: it was a means of transport that required the production and the improvement of iron and steel. Steel improved steel technology, in fact, there was the construction of other buildings. There were also technological advantages, for example in communication sectors. Families, with the growth of factories, split: people went to work in towns and now, with technological advantages, they could communicate and stay in touch with their relatives. In 1837 there was the invention of the TELEGRAPH. According to the democracy we can said that there was the evident increasing of the middle class. That is why there was the REFORM BILL: the Parliament gave a bigger political representation to the middle class. In 1867 the Parliament gave the right to vote to all working class in the towns. Life for the working class was very hard because they worked a lot of hours and in miserable conditions with poor hygiene. mind. He used a lot the Romantic monologue, so he could reveal different types of psychological minds. During this period there is the emerge of female poets, particularly skilled with sonnets and lyric, they expressed the subjective side in a romantic point of view. An example is EMILY BRONTË, even if she is best known as a novelist, she also wrote one of the most intense lyric. The prose was very popular both in fictional and non-fictional works and the main expression was the novel, it spread a lot thanks to the growth of literate men and women and the interests of fictional works represented the hopes of the middle and lower classes. The introduction of new inventions made the material cheaper and allowed the production on a large scale, they also were published weekly or monthly, so they had lower prices. As we said novelists of this period were engaged in social life, they felt responsible for the rest of society and their aim was both to entertain and open people’s eyes on the bad things of society. DICKENS was one of the main exponent of the social novel focused on the industrial negative aspects of society, then we have THACKERAY, a satirist who focused his attention on the novel of manner, his work were especially for aristocratic people. GEORGE ELLIOT was an exponent of social novel, the protagonists were ordinary people, he introduced a psychological aspect, he focused on a character and the reason why they acted in a certain way. Another writer is THOMAS HARDY, he tended to represent the character defined by setting from which they came form. There were also female novelists like CHARLOTTE BRONTË (sister of Emily), famous for “Jane Eyre”, in this novel she described the story from a woman point of view like emotions and social desire, the representation of subjective feelings could be linked to Romanticism. Another example are the “Darkling Tales” of Emily Brontë that was linked to Romanticism more than the work of her sister, it was completely focused on turbulent desires and the feelings form both characters. In his period we also have the introduction of fantasy fiction, like “Alice in Wonderland” of LEWIS CARROLL, that was a reaction to materialism in Victorian society. There were also non-fictional works. Like essays of social criticism, for example JOHN STUART MILL, who criticized the utilitarismo system of the Victorian age, he thought the individualism of people and the genius needed for progress. American literature also emerged in this from English literature, it was about things related to America, an example is EDGAR ALLAN POE started a new type of acting, the modern detective story. AESTHETIC MOVEMENT The Aesthetic movement begun in 1880 and took its name from a French term “Fin du siècle”, that means “end of the century”. This period was known with this term because it’s the end of Victorian age and the beginning of a new period. When we speak about Aesthetic movement we are referring to the period at the end of 19th century, when the ideas of Victorian age were losing importance and were replaced by esthetic values. One of the reasons why Victorian values were losing importance was due to the fact that the supremacy of the British empire was threatened in political and economical fields by the birth of new powers like United States. The glory of Victorian empire was coming to an end with all its values also in the society, in fact, Aesthetic movements criticized the restrictive moral code of Victorian period, the values of middle classes of the Victorian period and they focused their attention on beauty itself, which for aesthetic movements was the main purpose of both art and life. This movement finished with Oscar Wild around 1895, but he highlight the advent of modernism in literature in the 20th century. One of the slogan of the aesthetics was “Art for Art’s Sake”, because they wanted to stress the independence of autonomy of art. According to them they thought that art should be independent from all the problems related with the society. Art had to be appreciated for it own beauty rather than other purposes. They refused the idea that there was a correlation between art and the historical contest: a piece of art had not to be interpreted with historical background, but it had to be appreciated for it own beauty. From a stylistic point of view, the works of the aesthetic authors and the artists in general were highly refined so they were almost perfect from the exterior. Of course this movement was influenced by other movements and personalities, even if it has its own unique characteristics. Two of the artists that influenced this movement and contributed to create it are Walter Pater and Charles Baudelaire. Walter Pater wrote a book called “The renaissance” published in 1873. In this book he wanted to highlight the important aspects of renaissance through the examination of both works and lives of its artists. At the end of this work he said that “not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end”. The experience was the moment that you are living. According to him the important thing was the single moment a person lived, so the consequences of that thing were not important. This vision of life encouraged a person to live in the present. Also regarding the art, because people had to appreciate the physical objects without thinking about the meaning behind the object, because according to him the reflection diminished the value of the art because we focus on general aspects rather than on the true object. So the aesthetic artists embraced these believes of Pater and they thought that beauty was superior than morality. So it is completely the opposite of Victorian beliefs because the authors of the Victorian age spoke about the problems of the society so their works were full of involvement in the political and social aspects of the society, while the aesthetes wanted to focus mainly on the beauty of the art, living the present without thinking about the consequences and focuses the attention on the art itself (an example of aesthete in Italy is D’Annunzio). CHARLES BAUDELAIRE is considered the founder of French symbolist movement, which is a parallel movement to the British aesthetic one. The poetry of Baudelaire had many characteristics that later will be used by aesthetics. These characteristics are: - sexually explicit material; - Intense desire of sexuality; - Relationship between art and life. In one of his essays Oscar Wild said that “life imitates art far more art imitates life”. With this sentence he basically said that art is superior to life and that life finds his expression and beauty trough art. This notion of Wild was based on the idea of Baudelaire and it later became one of the basis of the aesthetic movement. Another important influence was the Hellenism: we have already seen the focus on the greek culture in the Victorian age and the effects of this culture had on the Victorian society, but during Victorian era greek culture was limited to political and social fields, because it stressed the importance of morality. While the aesthetic reestablished the concept of the HEDONISM, which is a greek term and it means all the attitudes motivated to the research of pleasure and beauty (it is pursuit of pleasure and beauty, as a main purpose of life). This is the reason why aesthetics authors became famous in a negative way for their habits and their excess in both works and life, so they refused to follow the christianity moral principles of Victorian age, because they decided to follow pagan belief of greek cultures. This break down of that time led to an association with the world DECADENTS. We have also to remember that the Victorian period was an age of scientific discoveries and innovations. Science is often considered the opposite of art because science is practical things, while art is abstract things. Another reason why aesthetics wanted to follow greek cultures, because aesthetics admired greek examples of art. Aesthetics author were not against scientific progress but they wanted the same importance also for art. The commitment of the aesthetics to this kind of movement was related to their own works and to their way of living. For example in their daily life they used a different language, which was an exaggerated language full of superlative adjectives. They dressed in a certain way and they lived the sexuality also in a certain way and they used alcool and drugs. A typical character is the DANDY. This kind of figure was always existed and indicate a person who put particular attention on his appear. He was usually eccentric but elegant. During this period being a dandy meant that the artificial was superior than natural. Dandy, in fact, preferred urban life rather than rural life (they love London). The purpose of reach sophistication was reached up trough the use of witty (smart) language. Dorian Grey was considered a dandy. People in this period had a dissolutive behavior respect the Victorian Age, also in sexual aspects. In 1885 the British Parliament bend homosexuals and established a low against them, in fact, everyone was caught in a relationship with another men was imprisoned for two years. It was a punishment against homosexual relationships. During the late Victorian Period there was an increasing interest in sensuality and in homosexually in particular; the words Homosexual and lesbian became known in this period. Aesthetic artists wanted to rebel to the morality of the Victorian period, in fact, they tended to live a promiscuous life: they had liberal sexuality with both women and men. Aesthetic artists were both bisexual and homosexual. This trend was partly attributed to the restoration of the greek cultures: in the ancient Greek homosexual relationships were normal and they were even encouraged. This preference was also due to the fact that the aesthetic authors was extremely individualistic: they opposed everything that was conventional. The main purpose was to shock the middle classes with both their word and lifestyle. This is why they created sexually words and why the adopted liberal sexual behavior. They wanted to rebel against morality of Victorian period. The combination of this desire to shock the middle classes and the desire to live the present led these artists to extreme behavior and they developed a lot of habits that will be considerate vices. In addition to a liberal sexual relationships, they consumed a lot of alcool and drugs (for example absinthe, opium and hashish) because they allowed them to feel a great sensation. For this reason they died very young. wear a uniform, they couldn’t talk with the others and they had to work for long hours. The idea behind these workhouses at the beginning was that poverty was a consequence for the laziness of people, so the horrible conditions used in these workhouses had to inspire these poor people to work and to better their conditions. In reality, the workhouses didn’t provide any possibility to improve the economic or social conditions of the poor people. on the contrary instead of alleviate their sufferings the guardians abused their power and they cause them more misery. ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTERS OF OLIVER TWIST Oliver Twist is a child heroin a novel of social protest and he is described in a way so that he can appeal our sentiments and emotions. If we analyse the character of Oliver Twist we can see that he is not a believable character, because even if he has grown in a corrupted environment , surrounded by bad people, he is absolute pure and good and this is the contrary of the intentions of Dickens. Dickens with this novel wanted to challenge the Victorian idea of poverty and of criminal, because the Victorians thought that a criminal person was evil since birth, while Dickens wanted to demonstrate the fact that living in a corrupted environment could influence the nature of a person. Even if his intentions were these, the description that he made of Oliver was a contradiction because Oliver is a good person since birth, even if he grows up in a corrupted environment he is still good. The explanation behind his choice regards the fact that using this description was more effective in making popular this novel, because if he would have chosen another character who was not all good, for example like Nancy who has both the qualities good and bad, the novel wouldn’t had the same success among the audience because of the strict morality of the Victorians of that period. So the intention of Dickens was to criticize society, was to use irony to describe characters from the middle class but he describe the protagonist as a sort of saint, so Victorian people would have loved this character. On the other side Mr Fagin was described as the pure evil, he is a kind of antagonist of the story and even if Dickens denied the fact that there was a kind of anti-Semitism in it, because Mr Fagin was Jewish, in reality the terms of the description that he used for him are full of ethnic stereotypes in a negative way. The only exception in this novel is Nancy because she is a character who has both sides, so she is the most realistic character in the novel. She was a child who grew up in the street and she has been a thief, an alcoholic and also a prostitute, but she does one noble act in the story because she sacrifices her life to save Oliver. So the moral of Nancy is complex and unique, because she is the only one who is capable of both good and evil. Probably the ambiguity of this character can be explained by the fact that all the negative actions that she have done are a consequence of her relationship with a bad person, because she had a relationship with Sikes who was a bad man who worked for Fagin and she behaved bad but in reality she was a good person. THEMES One of the main theme that is present in the novel of Dickens is the critic towards the charity organizations, which were workhouses for example. Workhouses were institutions created at the beginning to help poor people, but in the end they became a kind of prison for them and a kind of way of businessman to exploit the work of these poor people. The critic was towards the Poor Low of 1834: he didn’t agree with this low and he didn’t agree with the creation of these workhouses, because even if the intension at the beginning probably were good at the end they resoled in a very bad environment for these poor people, that didn’t have any other choice to survive. He critiqued the way they treated the poor inside these workhouses, the way the guardians exploited them. It wasn’t an organization to help them, even if they work, they couldn’t improve their living conditions. The help form the government was related to the fact that they had to work for the money, but in reality the situation wasn’t so ideal, because the result was not equal to the intension that they originally had and Dickens in the description of the environment of the workhouses and also of the characters who work there, he used a tone of sarcasm. Another theme, which is introduced by Dickens in this novel is the fact that the Victorians focused the attention on individual rather then on the group, so the businessman of the period of time believed that individualism was the main reason of success, so a person had to work alone for himself, so he needed to be a kind of egoist, to reach success in life. The middle class of that period of time was against the team work, against the society as a group, against the collectivity, so a person if he wanted to reach success needed to work by himself without the help of anyone, without the team work of the rest of the people. This philosophy in the novel is put in n ironic way, because it is said by on negative character, who is Mr. Fagin. Mr Fagin is convinced that of you want to reach success you have to work for yourself, but in reality he is a criminal. Dickens critiqued the fact that in that period of time groups interest are best maintained if every person looks out for himself. The negative aspects of these beliefs is demonstrated by the end of the novel, because the people who worked in an individualistic way ended in a bad way in the novel, while the little society created by the good characters which were Rose Maylie, Mr. Brownlow and Oliver Twist, who worked in a collected way, in the end they reach success: It was the prove that the idea of individualism of that time wasn’t good for the wealth of the society. Another theme that he introduced is the corrupt environment against the purity of one person and thought all the novel Dickens asks himself if the environment can influenced or not the true nature of a person, but in the end he said that the environment according to the different characters had different results, because characters like Fagin, who is evil since is birth, who lives in a bad environment, but he seems without any possibility of retention, but even if a bad environment doesn’t have the power to turn a person to evil if its nature is different, because even Sikes, who is the boyfriend of the character of Nancy, has a nightmares and has a conscious at the end, because after the killing of his girlfriends, he started to see her eyes. It is a kind of remorse for the horrible action he made. We already mention the fact that Oliver even if he wasn’t born in a better environment, he was good, so he was influent to the environment, but a reale example of the fact that the environment is not the only responsible of the nature of a person is Nancy, so the nature of a person is a mix between the environment but also the nature of the person himself, because in the case of Nancy, she lives in a bad environment, she is surrounded by negative people, she makes bad choices, but in the end as we said, she does a selfish sacrifice: she sacrificed her life for the good of a person she minimally knows, because she is not related to Oliver Twist, so she is escapable to do the extreme good risking her own life to save a boy. Finally Dickens nightlight the constant between rural and urban life, so in the novel he idealized the countryside. He put the countryside in opposition to the life of the city, which in this case is London, and all the good of the story is linked to the countryside. Oliver finds his peace, when he goes living with the Maylies, who have an house in the countryside, so outside London. London is the place where all the negative things happened, while the countryside is seen as a place, where lived pure people. However this contraposition between the urban and rural life doesn’t mean that Dickens was like a romantic, who preferred the life in the countryside, because if we read the novel all the aspects of the city are described in a realist way, as they were in reality, while all the aspects of the countryside is idealized, so they are described as not real. This contrast between these two descriptions is the sign that Dickens in reality was an urban writer, so he preferred the city, because he focused the attention on all the aspects of it. His aim is to open the eyes of everyone lived in the city. NAMES AND SYMBOLS Also the names of the characters indicates something. The very name of the protagonist, Twist, was chosen to indicate the reversal opportunity the protagonist had at the end of the novel, because he discovered his brother and the linked with mr Brownlow and Rose Maylie. The same thing can be used to interpreted the name of Rose Maylie: Rose is like a flower, she is the girl who save Oliver in the ent. Flower is equal spring so it is the symbol of youth. The name are very well chosen by the author to indicate the character of the story. Another important character is a dog, which is the dog of Sikes. He is called Bull and he is moral less the same character of the owner: he represented the brutality and he is also a symbol, because after the murder of Nancy, the dog represents the feeling of guilt that Sikes feels, because he stared to leaves bloody footprints on the floor of the room where the murder was committees, so the dog remains Sikes the murder he had committed. The dog is also associated with the eyes of Nancy, that are another symbol of guilty. Another important symbol is the London Bridge, in the center of London, where Nancy meet Rose and Brownlow to tell the plan of Mr. Fagin. The bridge is the symbol to link different places. In this case it is a connection between two different worlds, on one side the world of Nancy and on the other side there is the world of Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylies. The two worlds are meeting, there is a point of connection, that otherwise are not likely to have contact. Nancy can have the real possibility to cross over to the other part of the world, to change her life, but at the end of the scene, she rejects this possibility, so the two worlds are destined to remain separate. The only possibility is vanishing forever. Another element of the novel is the fact that during the story each character try to disguise his own identity: they hide behind false identity, to take advantages to reach their own interests. For example at the binging the guardians of workhouses describe Oliver as something that he is not. Monk, the half brother of Oliver, at the beginning, searches Oliver, because he doesn’t want to give him his money; he wanted to preserve the entire legacy he had. Also Nancy at some point, when she takes Oliver back to Mr. Fagis, pretends to be a person of the middle classe wearing other clothes. This indicates how also the clothes are very important to discovered the identity of the characters. The novel resolution is only possible when each true identity is reviled as they are, so when we know the true identity of every characters. FAMILIES Oliver is related to Mr. Brownlow, who was married to his father’s sister; to Rose, who is his aunt; and to Monks, who is his half-brother. The coincidences involved in these facts are quite unbelievable and represent the novel’s rejection of realism in favor of fantasy. Oliver is at first beloved to be an orphan without parents or relatives, a position that would, in that time and place, almost certainly seal his doom. By the ent of the novel, it is revealed that he has more relatives than just about anyone else in the novel. It seems to correspond to a wish of a child, because this relationships are related more to the fantasy of the author and not to a realistic point of view. Mr. Fagin acts as a father figure, as he was his father, even if in a negative way. On the other side, Brownlow e Rose act as they are related to Oliver in a positive way. The last thing is the fact that Oliver is described as a beautiful boy while mr. Fagin is an ugly person also in the outside, in fact, Outside beauty reflect inside beauty, the same goes for wickedness. OLIVER WANTS SOME MORE (pag. 32-33) Translation La stanza in cui i ragazzi venivano sfamati, era un’ ampia camera di pietra, con un calderone di rame su di un suo lato: da cui il capo, vestito con un grembiule per il proposito, e assistito da una o due donne, scodellava la farinata nelle ore dei pasti. Di questa gioiosa composizione ogni ragazzo ne aveva una scodella, e non di più – eccetto in occasioni di grande esultanza pubblica, quando lui ne ebbe due e un quarto di pane come contorno. Le scodelle, non avevano mai bisogno di essere lavate. I ragazzi le ripulivano con i loro cucchiai fino a farle risplendere di nuovo; e quando avevano terminato quest’operazione (che non richiedeva mai molto tempo, essendo i cucchiai grandi quasi come le scodelle), erano soliti sedersi vicino al calderone, con occhi così bramosi, come se avessero potuto divorare i mattoni con cui era fatto; occupati, nel frattempo, nel leccarsi le dita assiduamente, cercando di raggiungere ogni possibile goccia di farinata caduta sulle loro dita. I ragazzi di solito avevano molto appetito. Oliver Twist e i suoi compagni soffrirono le torture di una lenta fame per tre mesi: alla fine divennero così voraci ed iracondi, che un ragazzo, alto per la sua età e poco abituato a cose di questo genere (poiché suo padre possedeva una piccola trattoria), accennò cupamente ai suoi compagni, che se non avesse ricevuto un’ altra coppa di farinata per giorno, temeva che una notte avrebbe potuto mangiare il ragazzo che gli dormiva accanto, se egli fosse stato un debole ragazzo di giovane età. Aveva degli occhi selvaggi ed affamati; e loro implicitamente gli cedettero. Era stato dato un consiglio; fu tirato a sorte chi sarebbe dovuto andare dal capo dopo la zuppa quella sera, e chiederne ancora; e fu Oliver Twist. La sera arrivò; i ragazzi presero i loro posti. Il capo, nella sua uniforme da cuoco, era vicino al paiolo; i suoi poveri assistenti si schierarono dietro di lui; la farinata fu servita; ed una lunga preghiera di ringraziamento fu recitata per le scarse razioni di cibo. La farinata scomparì; i ragazzi sussurrarono tra loro e ammiccarono ad Oliver; mentre i suoi vicini gli diedero una gomitata. Bambino com’era, era disperato, affamato ed imprudente con miseria. Si alzò dal tavolo; e avanzando verso il capo, con ciotola e cucchiaio in mano, disse, un po’ disturbato nella sua audacia: “Per favore, signore, ne vorrei ancora.” Il direttore era un uomo grasso ed in buona salute; ma divenne molto pallido. Fissò, stupito e meravigliato, il piccolo ribelle per alcuni secondi, e poi si aggrappò al paiolo per sostenersi. Gli assistenti erano paralizzati dallo stupore; i ragazzi dalla paura. "Cosa!" disse lentamente il direttore, con una voce debole. "Per favore", replicò Oliver, "ne vorrei ancora". Il direttore diede un colpo con il mestolo alla testa di Oliver; lo immobilizzò tra le sue braccia, ed urlò per chiamare il childhood, also thanks to the relationship with Stephen and Rachel, so thanks to the fact that she saw what Stephen was capable of to pursue his own integrity, she understood how to change her life; in fact, she knew that the behaviour of Stephen and Sissy was normal, she admires them. When Stephen decided to leave town because he didn’t want to behave badly neither for the workers nor for the factory owner, she admired him because she realised that he was a good man capable of anything to maintain his own integrity. So, thanks to these relationships she realises that she had to change her life and at the end she starts to learn how to express and feel the emotions (thanks also to the love of Sissy and to the example of family that Sissy creates). STEPHEN BLACKPOOL He is introduced after the description of the characters who were Mr Gradgrind and the other Characters related to the Gradgrind’s family, so Bounderby, the children and so on; Stephen appears in a contrast with these other characters, first of all because he is poor, he is a factory worker so for the living conditions is in contrast with the other characters who are rich, but also for his behaviour and his moral integrity. He is an important character in this novel because not only with the opposition of his living conditions to the one of Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, so the opposition between poor and rich, and the fact that he maintains his own virtue and values even if he is poor, so he doesn’t want to change his life to reach success because he doesn’t want to lose his own integrity, so he wants to stay in his condition and maintain his morality. He is also important because he is described in the middle of the dispute between the workers and the factory owner and he doesn’t take part in the strike together with the other workers because according to him a strike is not useful for the relationships between the workers and the owner of the factory and also he doesn’t follow the command of the factory owner, so he doesn’t take part in either of these sides because he doesn’t want to behave badly; so he refuses both of these orders and in the end he finds himself left out from the workers and fired from the factory. So, to follow his own integrity, to preserve his own integrity, he finds himself alone and without a job and in the end, he dies falling in a mining pit and mining pit is a consequence of industrialization, it is an element abandoned from the industrialization, this is the paradox. So, Dickens through Stephen wants to highlight the fact that industrialization is negative for both the employers and the employees, in fact the only person who stays pure and good is Stephen. And during the scene of his dead, his looking at the star, so the author describes the moment before the dead of Stephen while his looking at the stars, and he focused the attention on one particularly bright star, and this star can be considered a symbol of many things, because can be a symbol of virtue that he has, because to preserve this ideal his dying, so he doesn’t want to spoil his integrity. It can be also a symbol of happiness that he probably arrived in the afterlife, because in this life he didn’t have a happy life, and it can be also a symbol of imagination, so the only thing that was refused by Mr. Thomas, without imagination was impossible to carry on in life, it is impossible to live this kind of life that Stepehen has lived. THOMAS GRANDGRIND He is the father of Luisa and Tom and he is the creator of this kind of education based upon rationalism, logic and real facts. He is the first character that we see during the novel, because he is the first character described by Dickens and he described while he was doing a lesson in his school. So according to him everything in life must be calculated, must be rational and self interest, if you follow this principle you will reach success in life, so you should follow rational rules. According to him he has reached success in life thanks to this kind of beliefs and even if he is not a factory owner, even if he is not an industrialist he acts as one of them because he treats people like machines. The tone of the narrator at the beginning is ironic but then Grandring goes under a huge changements in his life because after the confession of Luisa and after the realisation that the responsible of the bank robbery was his son, he realised that both of his children have miserable life they are both unhappy, so he realised that his education is not perfect and thanks to this mistakes of his children he learns how to feel love and sorrow and in the end changes and he starts acting in a different way he uses his political power to help poor people, he becomes wiser. The narrator starts to feel sympathy for him after the changements that he has. Because he realised his own mistakes and he changed his attitude. JOSIAH BOUNDERBY Bounderby is one of the friends of Thomas Grandring but the difference is that while Grinding focuses his own life on logic and rationalism, Bounderby focuses his entire life on power, money and wealth. At the beginning he pretended to be a self made man so he tells the story that he was an orphan, with no family and that he builds his own successes by himself. But in reality we discovered that this is not true. He had a normal childhood. So Bounderby represents the social changes of that period of time because, before the industrialisation the importance and the power of a person was related to the birth and the bloodline (discendenza), after the industrialisation things changed because the important thing was the wealth that person had so the power derives from weath not form the bloodline. So he is a rich person and a powerful man because he is rich and not because he is an aristocratic. However in the description of Bounderby, Dickens underlines that he uses his power in an irresponsible way. Because with his power he contributes to highlight the difference between the rich and the poor. THEMES THE MECHANIZATION OF HUMAN BEINGS So Dickens suggests in this novel that the 19th century England, so the England after the industrial revolution , the industrialization causes the human beings to transform, to be treated as machines, preventing the development of emotions, imagination and feelings. This suggestion of the author about the industrialization comes from the actions of Thomas Gradgrind and from Mr. Bounderby, because Thomas Gradgrind educates the young children according to the rationalism, to the facts avoiding any kind of fantasy things and any kind of things related to the imagination; Mr Bounderby treats his workers as machines, so as objects that he can exploit for his own self- interest and to pursue the desire to gain money. In the fifth chapter of the first book, the narrator does a parallel between the factory hands and the children of Mr Grandgrind, saying that both of this people are living a monotone life without any kind of pleasure, so the consequence of this kind of fact is that there is no fantasy, no feelings and they became like machine themselves. So, the effect of the industrialization is based mainly upon the fact that gradgrind philosophy is rational, because he thinks that the human beings can be treated by rational rules, so only by facts, and he follows this kind of believes also in his school that he has, so he wants also to educate the child and transform them in future machine without any kind of feel and emotion. So, one of the main aims that dickens has writing this novel, is the fact that he wants to illustrate the danger of treating human being like machines. He suggests the possible consequence of living a life without any kind of imagination and any kind of emotions, in fact, Louisa has problems in real life: she is the example of the negative consequence of an education like this and even if she remains virtuose, because she doesn’t love with Mr. Harthouse she goes back to her father to make him understand the negative aspects of his philosophy, because she is living a miserable life as a consequence of the education she received. THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN FACT AND FANCY As we said the main focus of the education led by Mr. Gradgrind is the fact that he bases his on education on facts and he doesn’t focus on fancy but there is a constant opposition between fact and fancy trough all the novel, so Dickens suggests that facts are not objective but they can be considered as subjective, because they are related to the prospective and the point of view from which they are seen, so the things that Mr. Gradgrind or Mr. Bounderby think, that are objective facts, are not completely objective but they are facts according to their points of view. Because for example mr. Bounderby considers the hands and the workers of his factory as objects and for him this is a fact. In normal world workers are not machines so this is a fact related to his own opinion. Also Gradgrind’s children are educated according to the philosophy of mister Thomas Gradgrind because according to him his philosophy is the true form of education but it is not an objective belief but is related to his point of view. And as a consequence of this negative form of education the children have grown up both having a miserable life. While Sissy is the only one who grow up better because she had a diffrent education since she was not the daughter of mr.Gradgrind but in the end the only person who grow up better is the sister of Luisa and Tom because she received both fact from her father and fancy from Sissy Jupe. So Dickens in the end suggests that to live a balanced life you need both fancy things and fact, so you need to have imagination and rationalism. THE IMPORTANCE OF FEMININITY During the Victorian era, women were seen as feminine person so they were believed to have compassion, moral purity, and emotional sensitivity. So, in Hard Times Dickens suggests that the characteristics of women can counteract (possono opporsi) to the mechanizing effect of industrialization: their sensitivity can be a solution for the problem of mechanization of human beings. In fact, for example, when Stephen feels depressed about the monotony of his life as a factory worker, Rachael’s helps him by inspiring him to keep going. In the same way, Sissy introduces his love into the Gradgrind family, and she teaches to Louisa how to recognize and express her emotions. So Dickens says that the form of education of Mr Grandgrind has prevented some women to develop their characteristics, so Louisa is the only woman in the novel who has not the same characteristics of the other women. Also Bounderby has a consequence: he can’t change his behavior because he married the only woman who hasn’t have this characteristics. So Dickens believes that the feminine compassion is necessary to have a social harmony. SYMBOLS STAIRCASE Mrs. Sparsit had lost all her money, so now she is working for Mr. Bounderby and she has secretly the desired to marry him, there is way with the arrival of Mr. Harthouse she wants to put Louisa in his arms and when she thinks that Louisa is being unfaithful to her husband with Mr. Harthouse, Dickens describes the scene with this imaginary staircase, so he imagines that Louisa is the sending down this imaginary staircase towards an oblivion and the shame, so it’s a metaphor of the author to describe the fact that in the mind of Mrs. Sparsit Louisa is the sending down in a dark hole of shame, because she is having a relationship with Mr. Harthouse. With this scene the focus of the author is to highlight the manipulative behavior of Mr. Sparsit, because she wants to act behind Louisa and she wants to favore the relationship of Louisa with Mr. Harthouse because she wants to marry Mr. Bounderby. The imaginary staircase is an expedient of the author to represent the harmful thoughts of Mrs. Sparsit, but in the end we discover that Louisa doesn’t escape with Mr. Harthouse, because she desires to go back to her father, so all the negative thoughts of Mrs. Sparsit are useless. PEGASUS Pegasus is a flying horse from the mythology and it is part of the fancy world, so it is not a real animal and there is a scene in the novel when the owner of the circus, Mr. Sleary, enters in an inn, which is a kind of hotel, called Pegasus Arms. The symbol of Pegasus is important because at the beginning in the first scene, because there is the introduction of the character of Mr. Grandgrind, who is described during a lesson in the school while he is asking the students to describe a horse. Of course, the description that he wants was scientific; so, a scientific description of the horse. This inn that reminds us a flying horse, which isn’t a real horse because doesn’t exist in reality, so this contraposition between these two horses, highlights that there are two different worlds: the fact and the fancy. SMOKE OF THE FACTORIES AND OF THE HOUSE OF COKETOWN To refers to the smoke, he uses the words Smoke Serpents because the smoke that come out from the factories and from the house, is similar to snakes. So it’s important the association of the smoke whit an animal that usual refers to the evil. So, the smoke, according to the author is the representation of the industrialisation in the city which is cover by this smoke and it also represents the moral blindness of factory owners like Bounderby because when he looks outside the windows, he doesn’t see the negative aspects of the smoke for the environment, for the inhabitants of the city and also for the workers that must work for many hours. He looks at the smoke and he only see money and profits because he understands from the smoke that the factories are working and that means that more thy work the more, he will profit. So, there is why the smoke is associated with a negative symbol and it represents the moral blindness of Mr. Bunderby because he can't see the real nature of the smoke and the negative consequences that it has upon the city and upon the inhabitants of the city. FIRE The fire is used by the author in two situations in the 3th chapter of the first book, there is the introduction of Luisa and when the author describes her he says that inside her there is a “fire”. So, the author wants to represent this character as a cold rational person from the outside but inside she has this fire, she doesn't know what this fire means but the author wants to highlight that even if she received an education based upon facts so based upon logic, she still has inside