Hard Times: The Effects of Industrialisation

1930 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: plain dickens thoughts on industrial revolution

This essay deals with the novel Hard Times written by Charles Dickens and the industrialization in that time. My purpose in this essay is to analyze the conditions of life in England's industrial cities examining the novel. The author concentrates on the deforming and inhuman aspect of this new process. It is known that during the nineteenth century, with the Victorian age there is in England an overzealous adoption of industrialization. This causes a changing in the life of human beings, since they are threatened to turn into machines and that means they cannot develop more emotions and imaginations. The text offers an account of the most important conflict in that society, between capitalists and workers. There is a new class structure based on industry and commerce, with a society that is entirely urban. When using a Marxist approach to analyze this work we must know that the bourgeoisie is the upper or ruling class of a society. They have the power to rule and control over the "base”, because of this they will force their ideology on the proletariat, or working class. The bourgeoisie are the factory owners and operators in business for making a profit, but in order to gain that profit they use the cheap labor of the proletariat. All the people in the Victorian age are stuck in this life and they lead a monotonous, uniform existence where pleasure and amusement are not contemplate, with the consequences that their fantasies and feelings are dulled and they end to have mechanical behavior too. People are replaced by machines, now the machines have the main role into society. “For early Victorian thinkers, steam engines and living bodies followed similar principles, now the machines appeared as a vital body,exhibiting form...

... middle of paper ...

...rnaces below”(Dickens,54). In one scene Louisa is described while gazing at the Coketown mills while her father offer her to marry with Mr.Bounderby and she replied “there sees to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes. Fire bursts out, father! ”(). According to the article “Melancholy Mad Elephants: Affect and the Animal Machine in Hard Times”, some critics view the machine's hidden, bursting fire as an allusion to Louisa's neglected passion.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Epub book.
Fielding, K.J. & Smith, Anne. Hard Times and the Factory Controversy: Dickens vs Harriet Martineau. California: University Press, 2011.
Siroone, Tamara. “Melancholy Mad Elephants”: Affect and the Animal Machine in Hard Times. Indiana: University Press.
Jackson, Leonard. The Demateriaisation of Karl Marx. New York: Longman Press, 1994.

Show More
Related

  • Power Relations in Melville’s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids

    1491 Words  | 3 Pages

    Industrialization finally results in the separation of the classes and the subsequent dialectical tension of production and consumption. This dualistic separation is made possible through the machine, the integral element that cements the unequal distribution of power. In his moral diptych, Melville questions industrialization by exploring these class divisions and the power relations within them. Ultimately, he concludes that it results in an exploitative system that thrives on both connection and isolation. Although the two spheres are physically and emotionally separated, they depend on each other for their continuation. Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” expertly shows this interrelationship between the owners of the means of production (the bachelors) and the workers (the maids), and how it finally results in the oppression of the workers.

    Read More

  • The Struggles of the Working Class 1860-1914,

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    Late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century were the years of achievement, the years of one huge reform, the years that shaped the present day in so many ways. The present day industrial workers owe their stable life, pleasant working conditions, and a variety of insurances to nothing else but these fifty four years. The struggling lives of industrial proletariat (thesis), their desire for improvement (antithesis), and the emergence of the welfare state, political democracy, trading unions, and social equality (synthesis) skillfully describe the picture of the events happening in those days.

    Read More

  • The Individual and Society in the Communist Manifesto

    1781 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the 19th century, the proletariat was at the mercy of the bourgeoisie for survival. The bourgeoisie imposed conditions that required the proletariat to work under harsh, unsafe, and unhealthy industries. Cities were overcrowded, unsafe, and hazardous due to the many factors including the smoke from the factories that clouded the skies. Earlier, Friederich Engels had described the conditions of the proletariat in the town of Manchester. He saw, “everything which here [aroused] horror and indignation [as] of recent origin which [belonged] to the Industrial Epoch”.1 Not only did the proletariat have to work in unsafe factories but also was doomed to life long misery.

    Read More

  • Industrialization and The Effects On The Lives of Workers

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    Great Britain lead the way for industrialization and made it spread through out Europe. Some consider this the best thing to have happened in the world. Others however see this as a bad thing. Of course, with such a big change came an effect over all people such as reformers and the government but the greatest effect was upon the workers. Since the 19th century, industrialization has had positive and negative effects on the lives of workers.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Capitalists And Wollstonecraft

    1830 Words  | 4 Pages

    This essay will compare Marx’s understanding of the relationship between laborers and capitalists and Wollstonecraft’s understanding of the relationship between women and men. Both Marx and Wollstonecraft’s conception of these groups of people show a large gap between their treatment and status in society. Marx argues that capitalism is not created by nature and the unequal relationship between laborers and capitalists is not humane. In other words, it is actually the cause of social and economic problems during that time period. On a similar note, Wollstonecraft believes that the oppressive relationship between men and women is also unnatural. The standards for men and women are placed by society, not by biological facts. Society and how people

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Charles Siebert's 'An Elephant Crack Up?'

    1811 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are some wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than wounds that bleed. Just as all humans, elephants similarly feel emotions whether it is joy or sorrow. In his article “An Elephant Crack Up?” the author, Charles Siebert focuses on the recent strange and bellicose behaviors of elephants and clears up the causes of the behaviors with plenty of informative observations. In “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert theorizes that the psychological immune system is triggered by large-scale negative events. We also see these negative effects in the passage, “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” while Ethan Watters exposes the attempts of Glaxo Smith Kline to convince the Japanese doctors that the Japanese people

    Read More

  • Christianity in a Tale of Two Cities

    1696 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • View of humanity ( The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

    442 Words  | 1 Pages

    By the example of Eloi and Morlocks, he warns of Capitalism and its consequences to mankind. This vision which is presented in “The Time Machine” shows or rather forecasts the results of the social split between the leisurely wealthy upper class and the working class, especially in the Victorian England.

    Read More

  • Industrial Revolution

    1309 Words  | 3 Pages

    The increasing amount of people left destitute and helpless regarding the hasty fundamental changes of the Industrial Revolution; which occurred economically, socially, and on the conditions of the workplace, affected the living standards of all, but did not occur obscure. Reform actions begun to take place; for even industrialists like Robert Owen were sincerely concerned of the direction industrialization was headed in. Endorsing with legislation, politicians together were able to ultimately relieve the working classes predicament, as well as regulating laws for child labor. Regardless of this, the expense of suffering paid by the previous working generations for this advancement in addition to our present contented standards of living was undeniably an awful one.

    Read More

  • Science in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Hard Times by Charles Dickens

    3616 Words  | 8 Pages

    10.     Allingham, P. (2000) Charles Dickens’ Hard Times for These Times as an Industrial Novel [Online]. Available: http://www.victoriaweb.com [Accessed: 25th April 2005].

    Read More

  • Sissy Jupe

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Ed. Fred Kaplan and Sylvere Monod. A Norton Critical Edition. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2001. 5-222

    Read More

  • The Portrayal of Family in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield

    4652 Words  | 10 Pages

    Charles Dickens is one of the most popular and ingenious writers of the XIX century. He is the author of many novels. Due to reach personal experience Dickens managed to create vivid images of all kinds of people: kind and cruel ones, of the oppressed and the oppressors. Deep, wise psychoanalysis, irony, perhaps some of the sentimentalism place the reader not only in the position of spectator but also of the participant of situations that happen to Dickens’ heroes. Dickens makes the reader to think, to laugh and to cry together with his heroes throughout his books.

    Read More

  • Industrialization In Great Britain Essay

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Great Britain was the first country to experience industrialization due to its abundant natural resources such as coal and iron, immense expansion throughout the world and subsequent economic growth from trade, and its governmental and financial strength. The industrial revolution was fast and maintained strength in Great Britain, whereas other Western countries experienced industrialization much more gradually and with more difficulty, due to political, social, and economic instability.

    Read More

  • The Hindrance of Escalation

    1605 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Industrial Revolution brought with it a new form of class distinction; society did away with feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, and serfs to embrace that of the bourgeoisie proletariat relationship. The bourgeoisie class, consisting of the modern capitalists, are the employers of wage laborers and owners of the means of production. The proletariat class is the much less fortunate modern wage-laborer; they do not have their own means of production and therefore must sell their labor in order to survive. Karl Marx expresses these ideas in the “Communist Manifesto” along with the theory of proletariat redemption and across the board equality. Orestes Brownson and Henry Ward Beecher, also writers of the time, express views that coincide with Marx’s concepts and ideas. The Industrial Revolution, birth of new class distinction, and the consequential societal norms framed Rebecca Harding Davis’ short story “Life in the Iron-Mills”.

    Read More

  • Marx Theory Of Alienation Essay

    2817 Words  | 6 Pages

    In stark contradiction to pre-industrial capitalistic characteristics, were those conditions that were endured by workers under capitalism and its emphasis on modern industrialized manufacturing. To Marx it seemed as if the ordinary factory worker was viewed as being no more than a replaceable cogwheel in an enormous and emotionless machine driven only by quotas and greed.

    Read More

More about Hard Times: The Effects of Industrialisation

Open Document