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3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Bah. I usually avoid Dickens because, well, frankly, I'm just not a fan. This book wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Sissy isn't fleshed out enough, Lousia is just pathetic, and Tom's characteristics contradict one another.
I know the characters in the book play second fiddle to Dicken's political agenda, but still. Disraeli did better in making us care about what was going on within the words. Dickens? Not so much.
And people wonder why I refuse to read "Great Expectations."
I know the characters in the book play second fiddle to Dicken's political agenda, but still. Disraeli did better in making us care about what was going on within the words. Dickens? Not so much.
And people wonder why I refuse to read "Great Expectations."
The first Dickens novel I have read, and I actually really enjoyed it.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A literary response to the changes taking place in Britain in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the restructuring of the old order, in more ways than one, caused thereof, Hard Times, one of Dickens’ not so popular novels, is a powerful testament to the threat industrialisation and its various manifestations posed to human beings who were no longer human, without emotions and imaginations, almost mechanical themselves. This mechanisation, enjoined with a philosophy (not that they would call it a philosophy) of rational self-interest, and a belief of the characteristics of human nature being equivalent to and limited to ‘facts’, is evident in the actions of Mr. Gradgrind, and the Bully of Humility, Mr. Bounderby, who also reduce the already oppressed workers to mere tools, ‘hands’, as if they were not complex human beings.
The overarching theme may be the critique of the dreary condition of the public, but Dicken’s concerns in Hard Times have more to do with the family and through the juxtaposition of the private and the public, he aims to portray a damaging and limiting upbringing and its consequences in the adult life. But, in quite a pleasant turn, there is no romanticising of marriage or a Victorian emphasis on sex-roles, although, as is usual in a Dickens novel, there does exist the notion that feminine compassion is what can counteract the mechanising effects of such an upbringing (as Louisa finally brings her father to see the faults of his way) or even the effects of industrialisation in general (as Rachael becomes the source of Stephen’s fortitude), and restore social harmony.
The different worlds of the novel are bound together in a tight plot, as, again, is usual in a Dickens novel, and though their coming together time and again is important to the overall plot, so is their individual existence, as they become symbolical of different strands of the Victorian society that Dickens takes up. The truth of Mr. Bounderby’s childhood, for instance – the fiction of which is supposed to support the theory of social mobility – is a motif used by Dickens to emphasize the falsity of the Victorian assumption that the poor couldn’t rise up because they didn’t work hard enough to overcome the many obstacles in their path. Dickens suggests that perhaps poverty cannot be overcome through determination alone. Another individual strand is Stephen Blackpool’s estrangement from his fellow workmen, which doubly victimizes him, suggests, in my opinion, that that is the kind of life the poor, those with no power, are doomed to. Sissy Jupe’s (actual) matter-of-fact attitude despite her original home in the circus and her ‘wrong’ answers about statistics in school which are actually closer to truth than facts could ever be, drive home the absurdity of a world of facts and figures.
Despite the omniscient narrator’s moral tone that shapes our interpretation of the novel, the novel itself is in no way didactic. No, Dickens doesn’t stoop to that. In fact, the narrator’s tone is more mocking and ironic than moral. And the novel is probably better for that., things aren’t miraculously set right. Within human life, for Dickens, is inherent the uncertainty of change and the certainty of individuality. What makes Hard Times as good as it is, is this realistic acknowledgement of the fact that an individual alone (or even more than one) may not, in the end, be able to reform the society, and he may, even on seeing the truth, not want to. Humans are, after all, not governed by facts and statistics.
I was afraid I’d be disappointed by this novel, and while I caught on halfway that I wouldn’t be, it was only while I was writing this review that I realised how much I actually liked it. It is certainly not my favourite Dickens (that will probably always be a tie between Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities) but it is not half bad – quite brilliant in some ways, in fact – and certainly deserving of 4 stars at least.
The overarching theme may be the critique of the dreary condition of the public, but Dicken’s concerns in Hard Times have more to do with the family and through the juxtaposition of the private and the public, he aims to portray a damaging and limiting upbringing and its consequences in the adult life. But, in quite a pleasant turn, there is no romanticising of marriage or a Victorian emphasis on sex-roles, although, as is usual in a Dickens novel, there does exist the notion that feminine compassion is what can counteract the mechanising effects of such an upbringing (as Louisa finally brings her father to see the faults of his way) or even the effects of industrialisation in general (as Rachael becomes the source of Stephen’s fortitude), and restore social harmony.
The different worlds of the novel are bound together in a tight plot, as, again, is usual in a Dickens novel, and though their coming together time and again is important to the overall plot, so is their individual existence, as they become symbolical of different strands of the Victorian society that Dickens takes up. The truth of Mr. Bounderby’s childhood, for instance – the fiction of which is supposed to support the theory of social mobility – is a motif used by Dickens to emphasize the falsity of the Victorian assumption that the poor couldn’t rise up because they didn’t work hard enough to overcome the many obstacles in their path. Dickens suggests that perhaps poverty cannot be overcome through determination alone. Another individual strand is Stephen Blackpool’s estrangement from his fellow workmen, which doubly victimizes him, suggests, in my opinion, that that is the kind of life the poor, those with no power, are doomed to. Sissy Jupe’s (actual) matter-of-fact attitude despite her original home in the circus and her ‘wrong’ answers about statistics in school which are actually closer to truth than facts could ever be, drive home the absurdity of a world of facts and figures.
Despite the omniscient narrator’s moral tone that shapes our interpretation of the novel, the novel itself is in no way didactic. No, Dickens doesn’t stoop to that. In fact, the narrator’s tone is more mocking and ironic than moral. And the novel is probably better for that.
Spoiler
Louisa doesn’t get a happy life, Stephen dies, Tom Gradgrind dies, only Mr. Gradgrind changes his waysI was afraid I’d be disappointed by this novel, and while I caught on halfway that I wouldn’t be, it was only while I was writing this review that I realised how much I actually liked it. It is certainly not my favourite Dickens (that will probably always be a tie between Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities) but it is not half bad – quite brilliant in some ways, in fact – and certainly deserving of 4 stars at least.
An interesting work. Shorter than most dickens works but a quick read. Dickens does another good job of showing he difference between the working class and the bosses. And how the bosses always win.
Dickens wrote Hard Times as an attempt to increase sales of his flagging magazine and had to produce it in weekly instalments which probably explains why it's so bereft of inspiration and artistry. It's ironic that a novel lauding the importance of heart and imagination as guiding principles in social reform should have a mercantile consideration at root. Hard Times is a leaden rhetorical read. There's little subtlety in its sermonising. There's not even much of a story and what story there is doesn't always make sense. Most surprisingly of all it doesn't include a single memorable character. The characters are programmed automatons of the flimsy plot. Even the humour is relentlessly off key. The only positive note is his standard sentimentalised girl-woman only plays a minor role in this novel.
For me this joins A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield as duds in the Dickens' canon, though it doesn't possess the redeeming features those two novels possessed.
For me this joins A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield as duds in the Dickens' canon, though it doesn't possess the redeeming features those two novels possessed.
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I'm glad I read a few Dickens novels when I was younger, before I realized how cartoonish and melodramatic his prose can be. It's hard for me to understand why this novel supposedly caused readers to turn pages in suspense, when the ending is so clearly telegraphed. Whatever minimal didactic lesson Dickens may impart about labor and social relations is ruined for me by a plot that depends on silly contrivances and even sillier characters. His later works are supposedly more sophisticated, but I read most of those when I was in high school and really couldn't tell the difference. This leads me to believe that those books aren't nearly as good as I remember. I'm almost afraid to revisit Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities.