Hard Times and Charles Dickens

The Industrial Revolution generated the perception that applying solely logic to everyday activities could maximize productivity and efficiency. Charles Dickens explores the dangers of neglecting emotions and imagination in his novel Hard Times. Dickens separates Hard Times into three books: Sowing, Reaping and Garnering in order to reveal the negative consequences of industrialization and forsaking imagination for facts through the events, settings, and characters in the novel.

Throughout history, a divide has always existed between the rich and poor in society. However, during the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England, this rift reached its peak. The working class labored for long hours and received miniscule wages, whereas the bourgeoisie grew abundantly wealthy through the labor of the working class. Published in 1848 and 1854 respectively, Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times both comment on these troubles. While Hard Times is a novel which tells a story and The Communist Manifesto is a short publication which tries to bring about social change, both writings offer a sharp critique of the class antagonism brought about by capitalism at the height of the Industrial

In Charles Dickens books you can often find the rich and powerful to be portrayed as cruel and greedy. In his books described the rich to be heartless. He had a great compassion for the poor. His compassion came from when he was a kid, and his family went into debt. (Charles) He was sent to a workhouse to pay off his family’s debts. (Charles) He wrote thirty-three books in his life time. Charles Dickens died before he could finish his last book The Mystery of Edwin Drood. (Dickens) The world of Charles Dickens is best understood through his own life, industrialized London, and scriptures concerning the poor.

In 1865, He was in a train accident and never fully recovered, but was still touring

Dickens argues that a person should be defined by their own self, character, personality, actions, and other traits which are specifically not their clothing, which is their wealth, which is their social class. He includes several descriptions of the higher social classes, both as opposites to and comparisons with the dress of the poor, but also as examples of how such arbitrary, socially constructed class can hurt even the wealthy – that this is a universal issue that must be resolved, not just a ‘poor person’ problem.

English author Charles Dickens has written many well known novels such as Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, of which both have a recurring theme: the expectations of society. During the Victorian Era, England was over populated and had terrible living conditions, with an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. Generally, people during the Victorian Era were not allowed to talk about things such as sex and crime, and had to live by strict social rules set by society. With the social disparities came many other concerns as well. Charles Dickens eloquently displays issues such as child abuse, prostitution, poverty, and crime in such a way that readers are able to understand and view them from diverse perceptions. By creating characters that have been through hell and back, Charles Dickens executes a great display of struggle especially within the lower classes. In the works of Charles Dickens, the wide variety of social issues of the Victorian Era are presented in a way such that readers are able to see specific issues from the perspectives of people from contrasting social classes, while speaking from his own experience through the characters. By doing so, Dickens is able to compare and contrast issues deemed controversial in the Victorian Era, especially regarding the disadvantaged.

Charles Dickens was born in a time of both change and impoverishment. Throughout the 19th century, it became harder and harder for people to survive. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, “cities were dirty, unsanitary, and overcrowded” (Life). In fact, the cities were so overwhelmed that they “had no place for the poor.” “In order for the less

Charles Dickens was a champion of the abused poor on account of his repulsive experience when he was compelled to work in a processing plant as a child.[citation needed] (His dad, John Dickens, ceaselessly lived past his methods and in the long run went to indebted individuals' jail. Charles was compelled to leave school and started working ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, acquiring six shillings a week.)[citation needed] His sensitivities, in any case, lie with the progressives just to a limited degree; he censures the crowd franticness which soon sets in. At the point when lunatics and ladies slaughter eleven hundred prisoners in one night and hustle back to hone their weapons on the grindstone, they show "eyes which any unbrutalized viewer would have given a quarter century life, to petrify with an all around coordinated firearm".

In the first place, I want to introduce Charles Dickens’ novel, “Bleak House”. One of the most influential arguments presented in this novel is the social and legal disagreement between families. The author criticize the judicial system of the period through the story of a woman named Esther and the secrets that surrounded her life. Certainly, the conflict of the novel was the issues presented in order to claim an inheritance. The reason of all the dispute with the wills was because all the unknown hidden facts between the beneficiaries. At the end, all the conflicts were solve by the discovery of another will that revoked the other ones. Without a doubt, one of the most relevant characteristic of the novel is that it is told by both, a third-person

In contrast to the luxurious life of the aristocrats, Dickens’ heart was deeply struck by the miserable life of the oppressed like impoverished peasants. Beneath the splendor, not only did these aristocrats show no mercy or love for the poor who suffered a lot in poverty, but also intended to make their life even more miserable. They used numerous taxes to put every peasant into a very difficult situation, holding the thought that the reason why the peasants postponed the payment was nothing but just making up excuse. As for their cruelty, for example, they acted completely indifferent to the death of a forester and the emaciated figure of a poor young mother. Even though Dickens exaggerated a little bit in exposing the inhumanity of the aristocrats,

Dickens idea that the rigid class structure is the reason for economic failure. This exhibits the economic principle that economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives. During Dickens’ era, many members of the lower classes were growing

As students complete their twelve years of education, they tend to relearn the same things in history class, and this is for a reason. If you ask any history teacher why students learn history, the most common answer is so our generation doesn’t make the same mistakes previous generations have. Although we always try preventing these things from happening, sometimes it’s inevitable- it’s how you were raised. In this case, injustice between social and economical classes seems to be something you can’t prevent because it’s happened so many times throughout history. For instance, in eighteenth century Paris, Charles Dickens’ wrote A Tale Of Two Cities about the injustices the poor faced on a daily basis from the rich. The movie Selma, which took place in twentieth century America, explained how black americans were denied their basic rights as citizens because of their skin color. The poem Women’s Suffrage from nineteenth century Scotland showed how women, despite the same taxes they paid and crucial roles they played in families, were still not allowed to vote. Injustice will forever be a recurring aspect of human culture between social and economical classes of society because the privileged classes will always overlook the hardship of the suffering.

The fictional novel, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, concentrates on the Gradgrind family; of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, his daughter Louisa, and son Thomas Jr. A major theme of friendship is portrayed in the books through the character of Mr. Gradgrind as he struggles with the idea of friendship between other characters. According to the Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, it explains a detailed account of friendship and what it is to be a friend to others. In comparing the character Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times, to the 5 basis of friendship written in the Nicomachean Ethics, Mr. Gradgrind cannot be a friend to others because he does not use emotion but rather factual evidence in his actions toward his children. The novel confirms Aristotle’s view of friendship with Mr. Gradgrind, proving that the standards need to be set up in order to have a proper friendship and relationship with others.

Charles Dickens' Hard Times Charles Dickens's Hard Times is one of the most important novels in the Victorian Age. He presents an industrial society in nineteenth century in England. In this age, England prospers in manufacture and trade because of high technologies. It is also a time of trouble. Industrial development causes terrible conditions of a working class.

Fancy is a noun. It means “the power of the mind to imagine things.” Do not think about it; do not think about thinking about it. Just memorize it. Can you? There is only one right path that society has pinned you on. Like a toy car on a wooden train track, you are expected to complete the course without straying from it. If you do, you are considered broken. Yet, what exactly is the point of mindlessly walking the same path as everyone else, only to constantly find yourself memorizing empty facts over and over again? In Hard Times for these Times, Charles Dickens embodies the consequences of an absolutely factual world: blindness, imbalance, and nonfulfillment. Through the convoluted stories of the opposite worlds, Sissy’s journey to becoming a jewel of balance, Louisa’s tragic fight for fulfillment, and the harmonious character Sleary, Dickens defines the urgency for the proportional combination of fact and fancy.