Personaggi e luoghi in Hard Times di Charles Dickens, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Personaggi e luoghi in Hard Times di Charles Dickens e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Mr gradgrin The main character is Thomas Gradgrind, a man of realities. He represents utilitarianism, the negation of every form of imagination. His name is formed by the word “grind” that means “mechanical, tedious”. Mr Gradgrind feels good in his square world of facts and figures, without understanding that he is trapped in a box: a limited conception of life. This character represents the industrial society that doesn’t left space to dreams, feelings and imagination: the most important things are production and material happiness. Moreover, Mr Gradgrind is the expression of Victorian educational system. He is the headmaster of a school in Coketown and he thinks children are pitchers that have to be filled with notions. Coketown This extract deals with the description of the industrial centre Coketown, where the whole story is set and where Mr Gradgrind and his friend Mr Bounderby are now walking. This town is considered a triumph of facts, it is a town of red bricks, which are not red anymore because of the smoke and pollution which has made them black, they are compared to the painted face of a savage, that gives the idea of danger and chaos. It's also a town of tall chimneys and machinery out of which serpents of smoke come out, image which conveys the idea of a very polluted town. DECADENCE AND AESTHETICISM The birth of the Aesthetic Movement Howe Mover The Aesthetic Movement developed in the universities and intellectual circles in the last decades of the 19th century. It began in France with Théophile Gautier (1811-72) and reflected the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist. As a result, French artists withdrew from the political and social scene and 'escaped' into aesthetic isolation, into what Gautier defined 'Art for Art's Sake. The bohémien embodied his protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life, leading an unconventional existence, pursuing sensation and excess, and cultivating art and beauty. The English Aesthetic Movement This doctrine was imported into England by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), an American painter who worked in England. The roots of the English Aesthetic Movement can be traced back to the Romantic poet John Keats, as well as to Dante Gabriel Rossetti( Pre- Raphaelites artists). John Ruskin, Walter Pater are regarded as the main theorist of the Aesthetic Movement. The Pre-Raphaelites