The Importance of Sleary's Circus People in Hard Times
In Charles Dickens' novel "Hard Times", an alternative view of the Gradgrind-Bounderby way of life is presented by Sleary's circus people.
Sleary's people are shown by Dickens as leading lives which go against everything which Gradgrind represents and as such they are at first a kind of abomination to him. They are shown as people with a life of freedom, not constrained by the rigid set laws and hard facts which Gradgrind's philosophy is based upon. Not only just the physical freedom to roam the countryside almost at will, where Gradgrind is tied to Coketown. But also a mental freedom to enjoy life to the full with all it's spontaneity, unconditional emotions, imagination, failings, shortcomings and passions. Something which Gradgrind is shown not being able to comprehend until late on in the book. You get the feeling that their life on this world is to give pleasure to others at sometimes great risk to themselves "a pretty fair haired girl.......made a will at twelve" 1 , in a place where the "Hands" can e...
I think that Charles Dickens message was to inform the rich, rude people to change their views on people that were underprivileged because they are poor it doesn’t mean that they are not human beings you treat them the same way just the way you would like to be treated. In the Victorian times if you were rich you were rich if you were poor you were poor nobody cared for each other. Dickens message in the Victorian Era was extremely important as Dickens tried to help the unfortunate ones by trying to change rich people’s scrutiny on them so they might help them in life.
In this essay, I will argue that one of the underlying motives in Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the reinforcement of Christian values in 18th century Victorian England. Dickens was very concerned with the accepted social norms of industrialized England, many of which he felt were very inhumane. Christian values were challenged, largely due to the recent publication of Darwin's Origins of a Species, and philosophy along with literature was greatly affected. In 1859, the industrial age was booming, making many entrepreneurs rich. However, the majority of the lower economic class remained impoverished, working in unsafe and horrific environments as underpaid factory workers. Additionally, child labor was an accepted practice in Victorian England's factories. Dickens, who worked, as a child in a shoe polish factory, detested this social convention with such strength that only one with experience in such exploitation could.
Here, Dickens focuses on the word “suffering”, to reinforce the idea that being wealthy, which is related to being better than other, a materialistic view of society is not what gives happiness, but the surroundings and
The famous American comedian, Groucho Marx once said, “While money cannot buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.” Marx believes that money will be the downfall of society because it is corrupt and creates individuals’ own different forms of misery. Throughout the book Great Expectations, Dickens repeatedly shows characters not pleased with their life because money has taken over them and has ‘chosen’ their own misery. Furthermore, Dickens uses Miss Havisham, Pip, and Joe Gargery to show how he develops his characters to define what a true gentleman is which proves how wealth that one inherits oftentimes leads to corruption and discontent in life.
12. Oldham, R. (2000) Charles Dickens’ Hard Times: Romantic Tragedy of Proletariat Propaganda [Online]. Available: http://www.pillowrock.com [Accessed: 25th April 2005].
middle of paper ... ... Understanding the relationship between environment and morality—indifference and depravity—Dickens evaluated what the system does to a person, how it classifies, how it deforms. Fagin manages the underworld, connoting corruption as an entertaining, enjoyable, and artful game not only because of his intrinsic craftiness, but also because it is the only way he knows to survive. Exploiting his audience's attitudes, Dickens shaped a character with religious stereotypes to ensure that his readers could recognize the absolute evil it had bore through its ignorance and apathy--poverty is a product of a societal environment. Work Cited Dickens, Charles.
In Victorian times, one who came from a wealthy and respectable family was considered to be a gentleman. This is clear in numerous characters in the novel, who are immediately perceived to be gentlemen as they boast a large amount of money and dress in the finest clothes. One example, Compeyson, uses this to get a reduced sentence in court, as Magwitch says ‘one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such’. This highlights the importance of social class in the Victorian era and it is clear to see here that the justice system is very much more favourable to the higher social ranks, deciding how they would get treated and addressed, and that the punishment is not dependent on the crime, rather the individual at trial’s background and upbringing. Dickens has shown that the Victorian concept of a gentleman is all about wealth and social ranking, not the characteristics we see in a gentleman today.
Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last novel, exposes the reality Dickens is surrounded by in his life in Victorian England. The novel heavily displays the corruption of society through multiple examples. These examples, that are planted within the novel, relate to both the society in Dickens' writing and his reality. In order to properly portray the fraud taking place within his novels, Dickens' uses morality in his universe to compare to the reality of society. He repetitively references to the change of mind and soul for both the better and the worst. He speaks of the change of heart when poisoned by wealth, and he connects this disease to the balance of the rich and the poor. This is another major factor to novel, where the plot is surrounded by a social hierarchy that condemns the poor to a life of misery, and yet, condones any action that would normally be seen as immoral when it occurs in the aristocracy. It expands on the idea that only an education and inheritance will bring success in society, with few exceptions. Lastly, Dickens expands his opinions of society through his mockery of ...
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Ed. Fred Kaplan and Sylvere Monod. A Norton Critical Edition. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2001. 5-222
"The Victorians were avowedly, unashamedly, incorrigibly moralists. They . . . engaged in philanthropic enterprises in part to satisfy their own moral needs. And they were moralists in behalf of the poor, whom they sought not only to assist materially but also to elevate morally, spiritually, culturally, and intellectually . . . ." (Himmelfarb 48(8)). Charles Dickens used characterization as the basis of his pursuit of this moral goal in the serialized Oliver Twist. His satyr was meant to draw parallels to the dark side of an era of British progress. One side of progress is wealth, the other side of the same coin is poverty, despair, misery and crime. Dickens allegorized evil in contrast to good through characterization and melodrama. "Most of the moral judgments of the reader are pre-made for him or her. As a result, the reader objectively absorbs the moral lessons Dickens has set forth" (Stoddard).
The Pursuit of Survival in Exchange For Happiness in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield: In Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, there are many lower class citizens who are treated with disdain and even disinterest by every social class that is above them. While the novel is clearly a social commentary on the treatment of the poor in 19th century London, the characters in the novel do very little to remove themselves from their downtrodden lives until they are forced to change. I will argue in this paper that a majority of the characters in David Copperfield change only when change is forced upon them. I agree with these 12 critics that a majority of the characters in David Copperfield do not change without being motivated to pursue change in their lives.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of Dickens’s neutrality is located in the very first sentence of the novel. He shows his neutrality through the description “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .(7).” This unusually comparative sentence single-handedly starts the book with a feeling of un-bias. In the final chapter of the book, six carriages carry “the days wine” (people) to La Guillotine to be be-headed (374). In this passage, Dickens shows his remorse for what is done. He gives hint that the common-folk were once a good people who are perverted by the aristocracy, and given the same conditions will be perverted again.
Charles Dickens' Exploration of the Victorian Society's Awful Treatment Of The Children Of The Poor
The first; Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in the book, was the principal of a school in Coketown. He was a firm believer in utilitarianism and instilled this philosophy into the students at the school from a very young age, as well as his own children. Mr. Josiah Bounderby was also a practitioner of utilitarianism, but was more interested in the profit that stemmed from it. At the other end of the perspective, a group of circus members, who are the total opposite of utilitarians, are added by Dickens to provide a sharp contrast from the ideas of Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind.
In Hard Times Charles Dickens portrays Louisa Gradgrind as a realistic character who faces conflict from the start of her life. Louisa encounters three major psychological conflicts in the form of three different men: Mr. Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby, and Tom Gradgrind. Men play a very important role in the shaping of Louisa's life. Instead of being her own person and expressing her own feelings, Louisa falls under the realm of these three men.