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Hard Times
The satire of "Hard Times" (1854), a novel that belongs to the second stage in the career of the writer, is still something Manichean and melodramatic, but this time we will find more elements of realism and social meaning. Sissy Jupe is a main character of the story. Sissy Jupe and the group devoted to equestrianism whose existence of free, energetic and creative essence. It is represented by his homespun in the Pegasus Arms. Relatively than contemporary an exactly political and social medication to the dystopia of Coketown, the author is happy to depict human activities that, if appreciated, will central kind of utopia, as it will open the entrance to the kingdom of God here on earth. Dickens exactly defines the dystopia of Coketown: utopia is only fictional as a kind of conceivable world to which everybody should seek rivalling the ideal activities of Sissy.
There is a girl, Sissy Jupe, who gets into school when her father leaves her. Gradfind and Boomderby are going to see her. Gradfind takes her home, focusing on her feelings and regenerating and introducing non-rational elements into her world. The family model is transformed and Gradfinf recognizes his error by repenting. There is a parallel process between Boomderby, the businessman, and Stephen Blackpool, the worker. The arrival of Sissy to the Grangrind family is a hopeful ray of light that enters the dark and sad world of Louisa. They become friends and confidants. Sissy's numerical ignorance is inversely proportional to her emotional wisdom. Sissy, in her humble condition, begins to offer some of the important existential answers Louisa was looking for.
Another central character is the honest worker, Blackpool. Like Sissy, he, in his academic ignorance, has natural wisdom and an enormous moral coherence that, despite being questioned by all, including by his own fellow workers, remains intact throughout the plot.
Sissy is the ambassador of everything that means the Sleary riding circus. The circus is the counterpoint to that numerical and empty world, because it is freedom, vitality and imagination. Rather than present a specifically political and social remedy to the dystopia of Coketown, Dickens is happy to portray human behavior that, if respected, will lead to a kind of utopia, because it will open the door to the kingdom of God here on earth. It also seeks to denounce another great injustice: the whole social system is a matter of personal interest; the existence of all humanity had to work, without exceptions, according to an interest transaction. Concepts such as compassion, abstraction or simple goodness do not fit into this equation. And the injustice of that social system extends from economic conditions to the same elementary laws of applied human rights, as being innocent until proven otherwise.
The latter is characterized by resignation. I work for love of work in such a serious way that blindly trusts his employer, and even goes to ask for advice when his wife drowns. There is a revolt when the unions come to the city, represented by Slackbridge. Blackpool does not want to hear about a strike; He wants to fix things by talking. He is marginalized by it and they throw him out. Gissing is a Victorian author who claims that Blackpool is neither a model nor a representative of the working class. It is a simple model of marginalization. Catherine Gallagher affirms that in this work something very Victorian is done, which is to unite the idea of family with the idea of society. Gradfinf is united with Louisa and her family, and Boombery is united with Stehen Blackpool and society. The solution lies in the reform of the family so that society can later be reformed as a model. The contradictions in this work are given because it is a person outside the family who is responsible for reforming it. Later, Tom becomes a fugitive and Gradfind moves away from society to protect his son. With this work Dickens presents the utilitarian philosophy and the risk involved in killing feelings, emotions, imagination. The attack is also directed towards the economy, which is considered a solution lies in the reform of the family so that society can later be reformed as a model.
The action of the novel "Hard times" takes place in the industrial city of Coxtown, in which everything is impersonal: people are equally dressed, leave the house and return at the same time, equally knocking the soles of the same shoes. The city has a widespread philosophy of facts and figures, followed by the rich banker Bounderby. Such is the system of education in the school of Gradgrain - without love, warmth, imagination. The world of facts is opposed by the troupe of a traveling circus and the circus actor's young daughter, Sissy Joop.
Dickens directs Sissy amongst the womanizers, to the hell of Coke town, the 19th century equal of the sinful metropolises stated in Luke: Bethsaida, Chorazin, Tire, Sodom, Sidon, and finally, Capernaum, a city that is high to the heavens but that I would be thrown into hell (Luke 10:15). Sissy, like the 70 ministers, should remain in the initial household she enters. In addition, similar her Gospel complements, Sissy is urged to settle the gruesome there. And that's what she does because, clearly, Luisa, Jane's sister, be obligated her distorted energy to Sissy's care. The imagery of curative reaches its peak in the last chapter of the second book and in the first chapter of the third book. Luisa lies like an insensitive dispossession at the feet of Gradgrind in the first chapter that immediately precedes the third book, "Another thing is necessary." Waking up in the ward for patients where his sister Jane tells Luisa that it is Sissy who has taken her there and it is she who has accommodated her to the evidence of Luisa's illness: "I could barely move my head because of the pain and the heaviness "(Hard times ¸ 164). But the seriousness of the illness lies in that it is mental, since Luisa still harbors a deep resentment towards Sissy, whose charity towards her, Luisa proudly assumes as a reproach. When Sissy approaches her bed, Luisa does not raise her head. The anger that Sissy sees her in her difficult situation, and the fear that she involuntarily sends him that look she has held so spitefully for so long, consumes her insides like a devastating fire.
Stresses the harsh criticism towards the industrial society and its modern mentality, which supposedly would lead us to the much desired welfare. In the mid-nineteenth century the industrial revolution had established a complete social and economic transformation in Victorian England. Philosophers and thinkers could evaluate the effects that this new culture was producing on the human being; Dickens was one of them. In "hard Times" our writer created the fictional city of Coke town , a place infested by the smoke of factories, rigid schedules and infallible statistics; its gray and uniform urban outline condenses all the spirit of standardization of the new industrial society, being the ideal scenario for another of its famous melodramas.
The conflicts that occur in this small hell are addressed in their inevitable social and political dimension, however, the writer focuses mainly on the issue of education. Obviously, a brand new technological culture requires a new mechanized and practical creed, where concepts such as fantasy, imagination and spirituality are completely relegated.
With this background we can deduce that the conflict between the two parties is built and resolved in the manner of melodramatic melodrama (like almost everything that was written in installments at that time). The Manichaeism of the characters is notorious (especially of the villains), in addition to the typical unusual coincidences and customary unlikely outcomes. However, the main theme and the extraction of the characters is close to a realism of great social meaning. As a successful writer, Dickens pleased his readers with humorous passages, immaculate heroes and ridiculous villains that end up being executed. But in return, offered an irreproachable literary quality and an accurate and forceful social critique.
After reading four works by this great author, I will have to resign myself and assume that Dickens is not easy to read. It seems to me that the complicated modernist writers of the twentieth century learned a great deal from their elaborate, elegant and cryptic descriptions. As usual, in the first chapter (and in each new approach) the British teacher demonstrates his prodigious skills. To make matters worse, the reader should not blindly trust their narrators, since they are always speaking with sharp sarcasm; instead, he should imagine the scathing intonation of a hypothetical oral narrator, in order to make the correct interpretation of the adjectives attributed to the characters and the true nature of the narrated events. Remember it well: with Dickens everything is irony.
With this background we can deduce that the conflict between the two parties is built and resolved in the manner of melodramatic melodrama (like almost everything that was written in installments at that time). The Manichaeism of the characters is notorious (especially of the villains), in addition to the typical unusual coincidences and customary unlikely outcomes. However, the main theme and the extraction of the characters is close to a realism of great social meaning. As a successful writer, Dickens pleased his readers with humorous passages, immaculate heroes and ridiculous villains that end up being executed. But in return, offered an irreproachable literary quality and an accurate and forceful social critique.
Hard Times narrates the life of different characters that intersect; Louisa Gradgrind, a young woman educated in reason by always avoiding the heart (much to her dismay), Josiah Bounderby, banker and owner of several factories obsessively proud of his humble past, Stephen Blackpool, a noble weaver who works at the Bounderby factory, and finally Cecilia Jupe, a kind young woman educated in the circus that welcomes Louisa's family after being abandoned by her father.
These four characters supported by a good number of secondary accompany us on this trip through Coketown, the gloomy industrial city they inhabit. None of them is particularly memorable (a rare thing in Dickens), and the author makes an effort on this occasion to record his criticism much more than in the development or charisma of the characters. It is that way in which we are shown the sadness of a society without a heart, without literature, art or freedom that makes this reading somewhat arid at times. At no time did he manage to catch me but at the same time he was not interested in everything that Dickens wanted to tell us. In fact, it seemed to me one of his darkest novels, his usual sense of humor (although his brilliant irony is perceived) and the luminosity of his characters.
After reading four works by this great author, I will have to resign myself and assume that Dickens is not easy to read. It seems to me that the complicated modernist writers of the twentieth century learned a great deal from their elaborate, elegant and cryptic descriptions. As usual, in the first chapter (and in each new approach) the British teacher demonstrates his prodigious skills. To make matters worse, the reader should not blindly trust their narrators, since they are always speaking with sharp sarcasm; instead, he should imagine the scathing intonation of a hypothetical oral narrator, in order to make the correct interpretation of the adjectives attributed to the characters and the true nature of the narrated events. Remember it well: with Dickens everything is irony.
What the author tries to claim is not so much the just social sensibility, but rather the rescue of the imaginative capacity. In this sense, the new (and difficult) times impose a pragmatic, practical and calculating thought to the detriment of the human being. For Dickens , the qualities of fantasy and imagination lighten the existence, but before the onslaught of industrialization tend to disappear or used for evil purposes. So this soap opera (of very diverse plot and inexhaustible narrative resources) invites us to resist the machination, the industrialization and the discrediting of the creative and dreamy intelligence.
