Riassunto All About Hard Times e Coketown di Charles Dickens, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Riassunto All About Hard Times e Coketown di Charles Dickens e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! ALL ABOUT HARD TIMES LIBRO PRIMO: LA SEMINA- SOWING The story is set in a fictitious city named Coketown which is an industrial town in the north of England. In this novel, the author tells the story of Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy, retired merchant who devotes his life to facts and self-interest. Gradgrind has two children, Louisa and Tom, and he raises them according to his values, depriving them (privandoli) of their imagination. On the basis of his philosophy, he opens a school in Coketown. The novels opens when Mr Gradgrind is interrogating one of his pupils, Sissy Jupe, whose father is a performer in a circus. She is kindly and imaginative. One day, after school, Gradgrind sees the two oldest children of him spying inside the circus together with other pals. Angry, he drags them away. Gradgrind and his friend Josiah Bounderby, a manufacturer, want to speak with Sissy’s father because Gradgrind decides to dismiss Sissy from the school as he considers her a bad influence on his children. But at the circus they discover he has abandoned her daughter, in hope that she will lead a better life without him. Gradgrind gives Sissy a choice: to return to the circus and forfeit her education, or to continue her education and work for Mrs Gradgrind, never returning to the circus. Sissy accepts the latter. Meanwhile, Louisa and Tom express their discontent and dissatisfaction towards their education. In the tenth chapter of Hard Times, Dickens opens a digression about the mill workers in the factories, known as “hands”. At this point, the novel Hard Times returns to the story of Gradgrind who asks Louisa to marry Bounderby. The man does not understand that Louisa is living in a state of apathy and alienation; he wants his daughter Louisa to marry Bounderby and she apathetically accepts. LIBRO SECONDO: LA MIETITURA-REAPING The events narrated in the second part of Hard Times take place two years after the marriage between Bounderby and Louisa. A new character, James Harthouse, sends to Bounderby a letter written by Tom Gradgrind. Bounderby invites James for dinner, but the man seems more focused on the melancholy Louisa. Tom also arrives at his brother-in-law's house and sympathizes with Harthouse, but he does not return the positive judgment. Meanwhile, during an assembly at Bounderby’s factory, Stephen Blackpool is against the Union’s plans and, four days later, he is fired. Louisa offers him some money, he accepts with the promise to return it to her. Two days later, a bank is robbed and the main suspect is Stephen Blackpool. After the robbery, Ms Sparsit is a guest in Bounderby’s house and here she notices that Harthouse and Louisa are very close. The second book of Hard Times closes with Louisa who visits his father and tells him she is depressed and that she had an unhappy childhood. After pronouncing these words, Louisa faints. LIBRO TERZO: IL RACCOLTO - GARNERING Bounderby goes to Gradgrind’s house to speak to his wife and Mr Gradgrind tries to explain to him that she refused Harthouse. Despite this, Bounderby gives his wife an ultimatum: if she doesn’t come back home within noon the next day, he will end their marriage. The story between the two ends and James Harthouse leaves Coketown. Hard Times continues with Sparsit that brings home Mrs Pegler, saying to Bounderby that she could be Stephen and Rachel’s accessory in the robbery. However, she tells she is Bounderby’s mother. Stephen Blackpool, who left Coketown to look for a new job, fells down into a well. Sissy and Rachel find him. Before dying, Stephen asks Gradgrind to believe in his innocence and tells the man that Louisa and Tom might be the responsible for the robbery. Tom confesses and he wants to flee to America. Bitzer, however, wants to denounce him in order to have the reward offered by Bounderby. Mr Sleary, Sissy’s father, who came back to town, solves the situation: he helps Tom to escape. At the end of the novel, Bounderby suddenly dies after loses his fortune; Tom dies after writing his final letter to Louisa, while she gets old alone. Gradgrind, instead, abandons his philosophy. Only Sissy has an happy ending: she gets married and has got children, living a happy life.