Theme Of Mrs Sparsit In Hard Times

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,

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.

1. Throughout the story suspense is aroused and maintained excellently. This is achieved by the character the author creates. Mr. Martin is characterized as a neat and cautious man, who never took a smoke or a drink in his life. Our suspense is aroused when the author states that it has been “a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows”. This arouses our suspense because we are told Mr. Martin is planning to murder this woman. The suspense is maintained with Mr. Martin’s thoughts. We as an audience are given his thoughts through the use of the 3rd person omniscient point of view. His thoughts are mostly on the issue on his dislike of Mrs. Barrows. Because of this, he

Women had access to the new contraceptive pill and this made it easier for women to engage in sexual relations outside of marriage. This bought about a questioning of the need for marriage and fidelity. During the play it becomes apparent that Lucy (Louis’ girlfriend and roommate) and Nick (Louis’ best friend) are having an affair. Nick and Lucy both share similar beliefs that the Vietnam War protest is more important than anything else. Nick and Lucy are the presented as representatives of the more modern attitudes towards love and fidelity. This is shown by Lucy and Nick being advocates of free love and seeing sex and love as two different things, this is evident when Nick says to Lewis “She’s sleeping with you, were having sex” (referring to the relationship between Nick and Lucy.) and “Lucy’s not possessive about you, I’m not possessive about her. What’s the fuss?” This shows how societies’ views of love and fidelity and what is acceptable are changing to a more laid back, free attitude. These quotes reflect the values and attitudes towards sex at the time, as women were now more freely engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage, and demonstrating ‘free love’. After Lewis’ learns of the affair between his best friend and girlfriend, he comes to the realisation that “Woman’s consistency is like an Arabian Phoenix”, which in this context, means a woman’s fidelity is often talked about and

Linda and Willy’s relationship in the play is characterized by deep love and affection, but Willy does not frequently show the physical manifestations of such feelings. After thirty-five years of marriage, both characters have come to know each other’s subtle quirks and dreams, but Linda’s thorough understanding of Willy cannot be reciprocated. At first glance, she resembles a stereotypical housewife who passively stays home while her husband maintains his role as the breadwinner of the family,

Abby Alcott, Louisa’s mother, was a highly educated young woman, rare for her time, but like her husband, made poor decisions that would ultimately hurt the family’s well-being severely. Abby worked as a nurse for families living in poverty, who could not afford health care from paid doctors. However, Mrs. Alcott was very careless about her nursing and never bothered to ask what she was treating. Her carelessness caused her to bring home smallpox and scarlet fever to her husband and four daughters. The Scarlett fever Abby brought home would eventually lead to the death of one of her daughters, Beth (Steven 112). Her parent’s financial carelessness lead her to “beg[in] writing to make money for her mother and three sisters”(DeSalle). Louisa also at one point in her childhood vowed that she would one day become rich so she could provide for her family, in the way her father had not.

Grose. Ambiguity of goodness and immorality characterizes the individuals that surround her, but Mrs. Grose is not corrupted. Mrs. Grose is the governess’ ally and confidante as the novel progresses. “My hand was on my friend's arm, but she failed for the moment, confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my pressure” (232). The governess speaks to her with alarm, but Mrs. Grose remains steady and levelheaded in the face of malevolence. Mrs. Grose has been the housekeeper at Bly for years upon years and her goodness has never been diminished by the influence of cruelty. “But she was a magnificent monument to the blessing of a want of imagination, and if she could see in our little charges nothing but their beauty and amiability, their happiness and cleverness, she had no direct communication with the sources of my trouble” (202). All she can see in the children is their positive qualities, a sign that she has not fallen under the influence or witnessed any of Bly’s immorality. Mrs. Grose is a symbol of kindness in spite of

Dickens depicts an eccentric and rather malevolence women who has been jilted on her wedding day. therefore, she has stopped all clocks and sits in her yellowing wedding dress. Furthermore, leaving her in an agony. Consequently, that agony and misery turned into hatred towards men. When Miss Havisham employs Pip to play with Estella, Pip sees an " old brick and dismal " house which reflective the owner. Furthermore, this shows the reader that Dickens tried to give a hint on how Miss Havisham appearance might be or could be, Alternatively he wanted to show that Miss Havisham has stopped caring on her appearance as she has stopped time and rots within the house and the house within her.

‘Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch?’, ‘Are you tearing up the pea patch?’, ‘Are you hollering down the rain barrel?’, ‘Are you scraping around the bottom of the pickle barrel?’, and ‘Are you sitting in the catbird seat?’ (Thurber 368). It helps give rise to the conflict, and helps to give a distinct picture of the difference between Mr. Martin and Mrs. Barrows, and why he dislikes her so much.

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

Molly, who is an unwed mother, shows the struggles she faces regarding her sickness and her father-less motherhood. She has to live with the social stigma of being an unwed mother as well as her financial instability due to her sickness. Betty Lou however is also faced with the social stigma of her perceived status as an un-wed mother. The way Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Monty react towards Betty Lou’s new status is striking. Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Waltham react in separate ways. Mr. Montgomery seems saddened by her status and offers to ‘forgive’ her for what she has done. Whereas Mr. Waltham seems aghast by the presence of a child. His perception of Betty Lou drastically changes to such a point where he offers her a “left handed deal” as Betty Lou describes. Betty Lou was of course highly upset by Mr. Waltham offering her everything aside from the single thing Betty Lou wanted,

Curley’s wife is the only lady on the ranch who becomes lonely because she wants to talk to someone but her and her husband dislike each other. He is very controlling and won’t allow her talk to any of the men. However, some of the men such as Lennie are attracted to her, “She’s purty” he says about her, but they don’t talk to her in fear of Curley. On the ranch, she is known as a ‘tart’ because she flirts with the other men to get herself some attention. The reason she is such a flirtatious person is because she knows her beauty is her power and she can use it to flirt with the other men to make her husband jealous. She also believes that she would make it to the movies one day. She says to Lennie "I ain’t meant to live like this…,” she thinks

The antithesis of ‘weeping’ and ‘laughing’ highlight to the reader how Mrs Hayward is a character who evokes feelings of both happiness and shame in Stephen, due to her respective actions and emotions. She is a fragmented and incomplete character who is portrayed to the audience through an anaphoric series of present tense memories, which make her actions, and consequent responses of the narrator, seem immediate and continual. She is a character who evokes an emotional response in our narrator almost sixty years after unknown events have occurred, suggesting to the reader that she is going to be central to his journey down ‘memory lane’.

Clarissa is trying to arrange a party to celebrate the fact that Richard has won a literary award, but is getting little help from Richard's ex-lover, Louis. As she labors to help Richard through another day, he wonders if his life is worth the unending struggle. In the end, it is the individual who must determine their own destiny.

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.