Charles dickens was very caring person he was a man who felt very strongly about such tings as utilitarianism and industrialisation as he lived in the time period were Britain was industrialised. He lived in London Britain from 1812 to 1870. He wrote hard times to show his views on these matters in 1854. Due to the circumstances in his life he wrote the book to show his personal experiences and help them know more about the thing he had seen. Dickens was man who cared, he was a philosopher who cared about humans and was interested in their relationships and how people were treated.
Chapter 1 In chapter 1 of hard times we can see that Gradgrind is like the parent who is too strict, he wants to teach the children facts and nothing else. He wants to drain out the children’s imagination and replace it with hard cold facts rather like himself. Gradgrind seed the children as machines that he can program to do as he wishes, because of the kind of person he is he feels that they need nothing else in life but facts.
Dickens does this to show what it was like at this time. In the novel Dickens uses the words in a linguistic way by repeating the word “facts” repetition of this word show that Gradgrind was only set to facts. Dickens really wants to get this point across a lot as he was trying to inform us as the readers about reality throughout his novel. He also uses literary terms to make the novel have more feeling and better descriptions such as when he says “the emphasis was helped by the speakers hair which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from shining on its surface all covered in knobs, like the crust of a plum pie.
Chapter 2 In chapter 2 the text starts to really show what it is about, we start to see what Gradgrind is like and what he is like at his model school around the students, we also see how Gradgrind views his students. Firstly we are introduced that Gradgrind is a man of reality! This relates to our previous knowledge of the characters as a man of fact. This is shown in an example of Gradgrind being like “a cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. We can also see how Gradgrind detests fiction by the way he exclaims that sissy should not have flowers on a carpet which would be walked on, as she would not walk on them in reality.
We then go on to see Gradgrind’s modal pupil Bitzer. Bitzer is the model pupil of Gradgrind’s model school. He is in the story to show how Gradgrind alters the minds of the children, in many ways Bitzer is like Gradgrind but not in physical appearance. For instance Bitzer has light colour hair and blue eyes. Another feature in chapter two is the interrogation of sissy dupe by Gradgrind, in this interrogation Gradgrind is asking sissy dupe lots of questions about horses and other things which he calls facts but are really just his opinions on the matters. Gradgrind tries to pressure, his students into having the same opinions as him.
In the novel it describes Gradgrind as a bomb full of facts about to explode, this shows that he is trying to force facts into his pupils brains just like a bomb, also it shows that he is so full of facts that he cant keep them all in and he is about to explode because of all the building up of facts. Dickens shows that he is naturally interested in illustrating that fiction cannot be excluded by doing all he can in the novel to prove Gradgrind is wrong he feels that we all need facts and fiction in our life, Dickens feels that it is not normal for the equilibrium to be distorted like this.
Dickens uses mono-syllabic language to help emphasise certain things one example of this is when Gradgrind says “what I want is facts.” Dickens uses this kind of linguistic terms to create a sense of urgency in his tone. We see that Gradgrind wants disparity to force facts into his pupils. At the point sissy dupe were interrogated Gradgrind uses certain language as to help describe Dickens opinion, such as when he says “girl number 20, give me your definition of a horse” this shows that Gradgrind tries to pressure sissy and this shows that Gradgrind is a fact filled strict old man.
Chapter 3 In chapter three we learn more about Gradgrind by seeing were Gradgrind lives and about his child hood, we also learn more about his children tom and Louisa and the experiences they have and how dickens describes these things. Firstly we see that Gradgrind’s home stony lodge is very much like Gradgrind it is cold, boring and emotion less in the text it also says that the windows were similar to his eye brows, like big dark caves hanging over his eye.
In chapter 3 we also learn more about Gradgrind’s children tom and Louisa, Gradgrind educated his children only on facts just like he does with his pupils at his model school, they were not allowed to go out and play like normal children, instead they were confined to their studies were they were told to find fascination in books and facts as playing and fun was not factual enough for Gradgrind and had no real point to it.
