Significance of Emotional Education in Dickens' Novel, Hard Times

To begin, the director, Roman Polanski, effectively demonstrates how injustice of society results in the exhausting lifestyle of the poor, as they endure severe living conditions and impractical measures. Within the novel, Oliver’s innocence and good attitudes allows him to dwell the cruelty of the hypocritical workhouse officials and living conditions of his environment. For example, as Mr. Bumble talks about the rules of the workhouse and how “all poor people should have the alternative, of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it” (Dickens 15). Thus, the lack of care and harsh treatment towards the poor, explains how this cruel existing nature of the workhouse, devours many poor workers of the workhouse, which resembles a prison like environment.

Dickens uses the needs and wants for people to get an image in their head about what life was really like before the French revolution. "Cold, dirt,

It is ironic that the comforter which should provide warmth and comfort, bears little protection from the cold and suffering. Similarly, Bob Cratchit is not permitted to replenish his fire because Scrooge withholds the coal box inside his own office. This coal symbolizes the basic necessities of life which the gluttonous upper class individuals withhold from the working-class, in a complete disregard for their well-being. Therefore, having seen poverty first-hand, Dickens implies via the poor salary, the harsh working conditions, and through the lack of heat that the capitalists willfully abuse their workers as to retain extra capital for their personal use.

She is a character who is loyal, yet she is also someone who is a perfectionist and still wants to be alone. Waiting 15 years to marry the love of her life, shows she has a charateristic of loyalty to herself and others. The narrator shows one exmaple of her loyalty when the text says, "she had been faithful to him all these years” (Freeman 472). This quote shows not only her loyalty to him, but the worth of value she has for committment. Even though she has a committment to him, this does not take into account the fact they have both changed since they last met 14 years ago. The narrator shows this when the text says,"fifteen years ago she had been in love with him at least she considered herself to be” (Freeman 472). This quote suggests Louisa may have at one time loved Joe, but that is no longer the case for either of them. Along with Louisa being loyal, she also tends to have a perfectionist side. The narrator shows this side of her many times. The narrator shows this when talking about Louisa's lettuce "which she has raised to perfection" (Freeman,469). The whole story shows how Louisa always needs ot have everything in tip top shape. This could lead the reader to infer Louisa may have an Obsessive Compulsive

During the 1800s, Charles Dickens was one of the most acclaimed writers of his time. He did not just write books but he was a journalist, and play write. Many of his experiences and people in his life influenced his books. Because of this he was known as not just a writer but a writer for “the people”. He wrote about the workhouse, poverty, disabilities, social class, and so much more that effected his era.

The novel’s opening words (Book 1, Chapter 1) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . .” Provided, Dickens conveys the relationship between poverty and aristocracy through the use of parallelism, paradox, and other poetic techniques. In addition to, Dickens's technique functions not only to draw opposites, but to reveal hidden parallels.

In this short story, Louisa’s internal independence plays a major role in who she is as a woman. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman describes Louisa as an introvert because she is someone who enjoys being alone. She spends fourteen years of her life being isolated at home, waiting for her fiancé to come back from his job in Australia. During those years, she learns how to be by herself through the hard times and the pleasant ones “Louisa’s feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky, but so strait and unswerving that it could only meet a check at her grave, and so narrow that there was no room for any one at her side” (Freeman 66). This demonstrates how she is so use to not having anyone by her side. This is why she creates her own path through all the dark times she had to face on her own. In many ways this can foreshadow the ending of the short story. This shows how she always counted on herself and

The non-historian scholar wouldn’t even draw the connection between the industrial revolution and the workhouses, but many of those individuals who inhabited those dreadful places ended up there due to improvement of machinery that rendered them expendable. Which is why this work is so important because readers see the side of the industrial revolution that goes against the common thought that being everyone benefited from the advancements in machinery. The content itself isn’t the work of fiction and can be authenticated by other works of literature that convey the same themes that one Mr. Charles Dickens elaborates on.

Dickens develops inhumanity as something innately present in human beings, but that is only truly revealed when there is lack of consequence for revealing it. Society then shifts to accept man’s inhumanity and becomes a destructive force, brutally hurting everything in its path and breeding the inhumanity of revenge in the people it wrongs. This inhumanity developed by other inhumanities is why Madame Defarge so mercilessly hunts the Evrémonde family. It is why the peasants of the French Revolution are equally as inhumane to the aristocrats as the aristocrats had previously been to them. The brutally honest theme of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man is part of what makes A Tale of Two Cities such a memorable book, as it serves as not only an entertaining piece of literature, but also a warning to generations to come.

While every culture, race, community, and family have their own definition of normalcy, there are undisputable aspects that every being needs to pursue a successful lifestyle. With modernizing industrialization, came a more noticeable discrepancy on what these aspects should be. In Charles Dickens’s 1854 novel, Hard Times, he explores these varying viewpoints while quite obviously taking a stand for one perspective. Throughout the novel, one can clearly see that there are two different models for raising a child. These models are through the guidance of Sleary’s circus members and Mr. Gradgrind. Sleary’s circus has a very humanized approach to raising a child. Unlike Mr. Gradgrind. Through the influential writing of Charles Dickens,

Representation of Different Social and Cultural Forces in The Handmaid's Tale by Atweeon and Hard Times by Dickens

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, represents the morality and ambition of self improvement in Victorian England. Dickens’s early life, which was during the Victorian era, has hidden connections with Pip’s situations and struggles. This paper will explore and be supported by the concepts of two literary criticisms, Himmet Umunç’s, “Class Mobility in Victorian England and the Social Rise of the Underprivileged” and Nicholas Shrimptons, “Dickens’s Muscular Novel”. Umunç’s and Shrimpton dive into the deeper meaning of Great Expectations and how it shows the triumph of morality over mobility.

Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times critiques the use of extreme utilitarianism as an acceptable means to governing a society in which citizens are able to lead happy, productive, flourishing lives. “Just the facts,”19th century English utilitarianism argued, are all one needs to flourish. Those answers that we can arrive at by way of mathematical, logical reasoning are all needed to live a full human life. Hard Times shows however that a “just the facts” philosophy creates a community inhospitable to the needs of one another, a society nearly void of human compassion, and one lacking in morality. Underlying the novel’s argument is the Aristotelian concept that the primary purpose of government is to

In Hard Times, Dickens presents life philosophies of three men that directly contradict each other. James Harthouse sees one’s actions in life as meaningless since life is so short. Mr. Gradgrind emphasizes the importance of fact and discourages fantasy since life is exactly as it was designed to be. Mr. Slearly exhibits that “all work and no play” will make very dull people out of all of us. He also proclaims that one should never look back on one’s life and regret past actions. Dickens is certainly advocating Sleary’s life philosophy because the subjects of the other two philosophies led depressing and unhappy lives. This is made clear when Louisa realises her childhood of fact without fancy has ruined her, when Tom’s life falls apart after leaving his father’s home in rejection of his strict parenting, and when Mr. Gradgrind himself realises the faults in his own philosophy and devotes the rest of his life to virtue and charity.

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.