Hard Times
(Charles Dickens)
Hard Times, though not Charles Dickens? greatest work, is a definitive piece nonetheless. It centers on the Gradgrind family, a factory worker named Stephen, and Sissy Jupe and her circus ?family.? Mr. Thomas Gradgrind is the teacher at a school who teaches nothing but facts. He discourages imagination amongst his students and forbids it to his children, Louisa and Tom. One day Thomas discovers his children peeking into the tent of a traveling circus and sends them home to be punished. Later in the evening, he makes a visit to Sissy Jupe?s temporary dwelling with his friend Mr. Bounderby. His original intention was to tell Sissy?s father that Sissy would be better off if she no longer attended school, for she could not learn facts. Upon entering her house, Gradgrind finds that Sissy?s father has abandoned her and offers to take her in to teach her properly. Meanwhile, young Tom is sent to live with Bounderby who has communicated an intention to wed Louisa. Old Thomas sits down with Louisa and asks her if she wishes to marry Bounderby, 30 years her senior. Louisa agrees despite the fact that she does not love Bounderby. The novel then shifts to Stephen, a factory worker or hand who lives with his unfaithful, alcoholic wife above a toyshop. Stephen asks Bounderby, the factory owner, if he can be granted permission to divorce his wife. Bounderby denies him the privilege and sends him away. Around this time, a young man, James Harthouse, arrives in town to work for Bounderby. He meets Louisa who has gone to live with Bounderby and seduces her. When he offers her a chance to run away with him she promises to meet him but instead runs straight to her father. She tells him the entire story and admonishes him for the education he gave her. Bounderby then arrives having heard about Harthouse?s plans only to discover that Louisa is safe. Shortly thereafter, Sissy Jupe meets Harthouse to tell him to leave town and never return. He protests at first but then willingly leaves. Louisa ends her marriage with Bounderby and remains at her father?s house. Meanwhile, Tom has stolen money from Bounderby?s bank but the blame falls on Stephen who had been forced to leave town because he refused to join the union. He is incommunicado for some time until Louisa and Sissy discover him in an abandoned mineshaft outside of town. With the help of some laborers living in the area, they rescue him and take him back to town to see a surgeon. By this time, Tom has snuck off to Sissy?s circus to hide from the authorities. Thomas, Louisa, and Sissy find him there and convince him to board a ship for the Americas. While they are there, a former student of Gradgrind, Bitzer, arrives and demands that Tom be turned over to him. Gradgrind pleads with Bitzer but the Gradgrindian teaching remains strongly in the former student who obeys only reason and refuses to feel sympathy. With the help of the circus, Tom escapes to America. Here the story concludes with the futures of each character. Tom dies in America, Louisa never marries and remains childless, Thomas changes his philosophy, and Sissy, the moral winner of the story, marries and bears many children who are safe from the Gradgrindian teachings that scarred so many others. This story examines the different philosophies of Dickens? day, chiefly utilitarianism, intentionalism, and consequentialism. Thomas Gradgrind is clearly a consequential utilitarian in that he is immensely practical and believes that certain actions will produce certain effects and that is all that exists. He does not examine emotion, imagination, or intentions; only the material and the literal interest him. Dickens provided the perfect foil for Gradgrind in the form of Sissy Jupe, a circus performer who cannot learn facts because all she focuses on is the individual and their feelings. One major theme that occurs throughout the book is that of fancy versus fact. The utilitarian characters often dismiss fancy because it is not a part of the world in which they reside. Conversely, characters such as Sissy Jupe find it impossible to live in a world without imagination or creativity. Dickens appreciates this and therefore selects Sissy, the quintessential anti-utilitarian intentionalist to be the ?winner? in this novel.
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