Reviews - Hard Times | The StoryGraph

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I know, this isn't the classic, broadly drawn out story with 25 characters and lots of side paths like we're used to from Dickens, but nevertheless I think it's one of his best, especially as a historical document. Published in 1854, it offers a harsh indictment of the horrible social conditions in a fictional English industrial town ('Coketown'). And at the same time it illustrates Dickens' moralistic look at gruesome reality.

The protagonist, the goodhearted weaver Stephen Blackpool, is the symbol of the natural wisdom of the laborers ('the Hands'). He becomes victim of both the industrial class as the labour union. Clearly Dickens didn't trust the unions as defenders of the working class, but he rather saw them as a violent, disruptive and double harted element. The author preferred reforms from above, in a context of harmonious cooperation between employees and employers.

Dickens also denounces the arrogance of the bourgeoisie (through the industrial Bounderby and the nihilistic politician Harthouse). And he offers a sharp critique on the emergent philosophy of positivism, with its obsession for hard facts and ruthless logic (a clear reference to the French philosoper Auguste Comte). Above this all hovers the wisdom of charitable female characters like Cecilia and Rachael. Perhaps you can say that Dickens' classic novels are more impressive from a literary point of view, but this social document sure made a lasting impression on me.

debrabrinckley's review against another edition

2.0

As a devoted lover of Dickens, it pains me to rate this only 2 stars. This novel felt rushed and disconnected. It lacked the beautifully complex Dickens characters and illustrious detailed descriptions that are almost more poetry than prose. I will continue to work my way through his tome, but this one certainly falls to the bottom of the Dickens barrel.

winter84's review against another edition

4.0

Wonderful writing style. I was genuinely immersed in the story and loved how each character was portrayed.

The novel has a melancholy vibe, which I absolutely loved. The general setting was interesting to understand as well.

Louisa was the character I was invested in the most, maybe it is because the focus was on her mostly. Additionaly, while the brother, Tom, was a total jerk, he was interesting to study and understand.

emilyjean_xo's review against another edition

2.5

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

benjaminthomas1999's review against another edition

slow-paced

liesbethtatjana's review against another edition

2.75

dark informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

michael_dupp's review against another edition

Instalment XV is three-quarters through Dickens’ novel-in-serial, Hard Times. As Dickens was paid for twenty instalments, the placement of each weekly instalment is significant. Writing with prior knowledge of the scope of the novel, in his working notes, Dickens planned carefully to develop the overarching narrative within these constraints. As Victorian journalism started to adopt a daily model, Dickens developed his argument in instalments, or units of engagement that more closely emulated patterns of journalistic consumption. Hard Times is concerned with the interactions between aristocratic and meritocratic structures of power, the ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms of power in industrial Britain. In instalment XV, at the apex of character development, these are demonstrated to be equally limited by contrasting characterisations of Sparsit and Louisa. The reader is shown chapters 25 and 26 through the eyes of Mrs. Sparsit, although Louisa is the focus. Mrs. Sparsit imagines Louisa descending a staircase, emblematic of her descent from power through association.

Prior to instalment XV, Mrs. Sparsit worked as a housekeeper for Mr Bounderby, Louisa’s husband. When introducing Sparsit to other characters, he often clarifies her class background as a metric for his trust in her. For example, Bounderby says “Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high connexions, you are on a level with the aristocracy” (165), demonstrating that his perception of her class status overshadows her status in life as it currently stands (i.e not an active member of the aristocracy). Mrs. Sparsit feels differently; “indeed”, she would rather forgo her relation to aristocracy “and make [herself] a person of common descent and ordinary connexions” (167). She is the widow of an aristocrat, not a self-made woman. Therefore, she wishes to serve Mr. Bounderby, subscribing to his meritocratic right to power through being an archetypal self-made man. It is a power of self-actualisation rather than inheritance, although ironically in opposition with his name: ‘bound-to-be’. Bounderby is contrasted with his Hand, Stephen Blackpool, who is used to show the systematic shortcomings of meritocratic society as inherently unequal and widening class divisions.

Sparsit is characterised in instalment XV as gifted with the ability to see and hear everything; “she was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house” (173). She is so adept that she was “suspected of dropping over the bannisters or sliding down them”, suggested by “her extraordinary facility for locomotion” (173). Paired with this is her ability to perceive. She asks Mr. Harthouse about the accuracy of her description of Louisa. He replies “you drew her portrait perfectly… presented her dead image” (174). She is also described as “a pattern of consistency” and “not a poetical woman” (180). These descriptions in combination demonstrate her lack of objectivity; Mrs. Sparsit is a mediating lens to view Louisa. It is in this context that Mrs. Sparsit “erected in her mind a mighty Staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and down those stairs, from day to day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa coming” (181). The staircase is capitalised to indicate that it is metaphorical, which contrasts with her being “not a poetical woman”; she perceives Louisa’s descent literally. The metaphor of a staircase is a traditional symbol of class division; ‘upstairs, downstairs’ is both a metonymy for Victorian society, and a Victorian drama about class divisions. Dickens indicates that Sparsit is not an objective narrator; it enables him to demonstrate that perception and objectivity are at odds, a problem which underlines the dangers of a meritocratic model such as capitalism. At this stage in the novel-in-serial, Sparsit’s development as a major character has come to its apex, as she has broken out of her compartmentalisation as the housekeeper-widow of an aristocrat, and become a three-dimensional character.

Louisa Bounderby, née Gradgrind, is the perfect result of her father’s ‘new school’ of Fact. The Factual curriculum of Thomas Gradgrind is an exaggerated codification of the world under capitalism; it reduces the world to quantifiability and rationality. In instalment XV, Louisa is coming to terms with the limitations of this upbringing. She says to Mr. Harthouse, “I know nothing of them, men or women” (182). This idea is made explicit later, in instalment XVII, as Thomas Gradgrind admits “that there is a wisdom of the head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart” (199). The reader is guided through Dickens’ argument which develops across instalments. As Louisa discovers how little her education has equipped her, Mrs. Sparsit watches her “always gliding down, down, down!” (183). This suggests that Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase is emblematic of the deconstruction of meritocratic power; Louisa does not subscribe, and so revokes her right to power through association. Messrs Gradgrind and Bounderby, both self-made men, sit at the top of the staircase, whereas Louisa’s empathy toward the lower class, namely Stephen Blackpool, whom Louisa met in instalment XII, pulls her downwards. This is Dickens’ journalistic intent with both this instalment and the novel; he demonstrates that the interests of capitalism impact all aspects of life (such as education) and ignore “the wisdom of the Heart”. The 1963 Everyman edition names Hard Times as “the novel that exposed the savagery that came with the Industrial Revolution”, and furthermore equates this “nadir of savagery and squalor” with “the World of Bounderby and Gradgrind” (blurb). Dickens personally worked in factories as a child; it is this journalistic insight that he explores through setting characters in opposition.

Hard Times sits at a nexus between journalism and literature, depicted by the corresponding binary of “Head” and “Heart”. Shaped by conditions of the Victorian media landscape of daily news, Hard Times’ instalments operate as parcels of engagement for his readership. Dickens can rely on his readers' hunger for and expectations of updates, in a similar manner to journalism’s potential for incorporating forthcoming information. Lastly, he uses characterisation and the visual metaphor of the staircase to demonstrate opposing influences of capitalism and meritocracy, arguing that a combination of wisdom of the head and heart is necessary to ameliorate the “nadir of savagery and squalor” that the industrial revolution had brought to Britain.