As far as I can see there is only one character in Charles Dickens’ Novel “Hard Times” how actually has an easy life, and that is James Harthouse this is because he is bored with life and has don’t most things. In this essay I will study three main characters from this novel that have a hard time in life and they are Stephan Blackpool, Sissy Jupe and Lousia Gradgrind. I have chosen these characters because they are from three different arrears of social groups. First comes Stephan Blackpool and in the novel Stephan has a hard time because he is working class and is not paid as much as other people.
His wife is a drunkard and keeps leaving and them coming back he paid her to go and during the novel she comes back and that’s where his life takes a migration south because he is in love with some one else. Part way through the novel he goes to see Mr Bounderby for advice on how he might be able to get rid of he and during their convocation Stephan starts to lose hope. “If I do her any hurt, Sir there’s a law to punish me? … Show me a law to help me” When Mr Bounderby tells him that there is know way to get rid of his wife he realises, as the chapter is named, there is know way out for him.
Another reason his life is hard is because he loses his job because he refuses to join a union because he made a promise to the woman he loves and he is a man of his word. Sissy Jupe has a hard life at the beginning on the novel during her childhood and it gets easer and easer as the plot unfolds. From the moment we come across Sissy in chapter one she is being told that she is wrong in her view of fancy and that everything is based on fact sold hard fact and nothing else. We are informed later that her farther had run off whilst she was out getting some oil to rub his feet with leaving her alone.
From the ashes her life takes root and starts her growth into a blossoming helpful young lady. This takes place because Mr Gradgrind tell her that she is to go and live with him and his family where she will be given a proper education. “She will go” Lousia Gradgrind On the other hand has had a very hard life from the word go. In the novel the character lousia Gradgrind has been brought up on the “Fact, Fact, Fact” Based education with not fancy allowed into her now emotionless life. She dose what she thinks is right for everyone else and what is probably not good for her.
Later In the novel she marries Mr Bounderby because of her brothers’, Tom Gradgrind, gambolling problem and so that he could get a job. She has had a hard time through the actions of her farther because of the education he gave he that moulded her actions in the rest of her life. So in conclusion my view is that all the characters in Charles Dickens’ Novel “Hard Times” have had a hard time at one point or another through out the novel in there own little way whilst in there own little lives.
The three characters I have highlighted only two have had a hard time all the way from the beginning of the novel and they are Stephan Blackpool and Lousia Grandgrind this is because Stephan Blackpool not only lost his job and has a drunkard for a wife but nearing the end of the novel he falls to his death into an abandon mine shaft. Lousia On the other hand has got her farther to blame for her emotionless life. So I think that Louisa must get the galaxy award for the worst life ever because she has had a bad life since she was born.
