"Cliff Notes - Hard Times" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Owner of Sleary's Horse-riding, a traveling circus, Sleary is kindhearted and generous. He speaks with a lisp (the result of chronic asthma) and represents a philosophy--"People must be amused"--that is the direct opposite of Gradgrindism. He is responsible for helping Tom escape from Bitzer's clutches to safe passage overseas.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: MR. M'CHOAKUMCHILD

A teacher at Gradgrind's model school, M'Choakumchild is a recent graduate of an educational "factory." There he learned a wide variety of subjects but little about the art of teaching beyond stuffing the heads of his students with facts. He represents some of the worst abuses of the educational system.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: MRS. BLACKPOOL

Mrs. Blackpool, Stephen Blackpool's wife, turned to drink some years ago and sold their possessions to support her habit. Stephen paid her to stay away, but she returns on drunken jags, to bring shame and disgrace on her husband, as well as prolonged emotional anguish.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: SLACKBRIDGE

Slackbridge is the union organizer who urges the workers to reject Stephen for refusing to join their ranks. An unattractive and sour man, Slackbridge represents those who would exploit the workers to satisfy their own need for power.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: MR. JUPE

A horse-riding acrobat, and Sissy's father, Jupe never appears in the book, but his presence is felt through Sissy's devotion to him. He deserts Sissy rather than have her see him lose his agility. Jupe is assumed dead when his dog Merrylegs returns alone to Sleary's circus.

Do you see Jupe's desertion of his daughter as an act of kindness or an act of cruelty?

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: CHILDERS AND KIDDERMINSTER

Childers and Kidderminster are performers in Sleary's circus, who deflate Bounderby's pomposity early in the book.


^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: SETTING

The action of Hard Times takes place in the city of Coketown and the surrounding countryside. Coketown represents a number of industrial towns in northern England--such as Manchester and Preston. It was Dickens's visit to Manchester almost fifteen years before he wrote Hard Times that gave him the impetus to write the novel. For further research as he was beginning to write his novel, Dickens traveled to the mill town of Preston, scene of a famous labor strike in 1853. Although Dickens did not choose to dramatize a strike in Hard Times, he probably found the model for the union organizer Slackbridge in Preston.

The atmosphere of Coketown is essential to the novel's mood. Dickens's images suggest an urban jungle. "Serpents" of smoke rise from factory chimneys to clog the skies with soot. The steam engine has an "elephant's head" that monotonously lifts up and down and fills the air with horrible sounds. All the red brick buildings are blackened with soot, and each building looks tediously like the next. Even on a sunny day, the sun can't penetrate the grime in the air. From a distance the town looks like a blur of smoke and dirt.

The depressing surroundings take their toll on the citizens, who are consistently woeful. The dreariness of the town is symbolically liked to the philosophies that govern the citizens' lives. No sunlight can penetrate the clouds, and no sense of imagination or fun is allowed to alleviate the tedium of the workaday world.

The main characters are no less affected by their surroundings. Louisa and Tom are so deprived of color and fun in their lives that the arrival of a traveling circus is a source of guilty pleasure for them. Stephen Blackpool and Rachael are first seen together in the midst of a grimy rain. Coketown offers them no other pleasure but their friendship. Gradgrind, Bounderby, Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer are all humorless, unhappy people. Their grim personalities are as much products of their environment as they themselves are victims of the philosophies that rule their lives.

Some readers have pointed to minor inaccuracies in Dickens's portrayal of Coketown. Not all such towns had these unsanitary conditions or unspeakable working situations. But Dickens was working for a poetic reality, not the literal truth. His occasional exaggerations or inventions are done to prove a point, and few can deny that he achieves a remarkable portrait of an industrial city whose suffocating influence is never far from your mind as you read. In fact, "Coketown" has come to represent a term for such grimy towns throughout the world, some of which still exist, although laws for pollution control have done a great deal to lessen their hazardous effects.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: THEMES

Hard Times is a unified, compact novel. Its themes often overlap as Dickens points an accusing finger at a specific time and place: England during the time of the Industrial Revolution. The themes are discussed throughout The Story section as they relate to the plot. They are listed here so that you may be aware of them as you read.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: MAJOR THEMES

1. THE WISDOM OF THE HEART VS. THE WISDOM OF THE HEAD

Gradgrind represents the wisdom of the head. His philosophy is based on utilitarianism, which seeks to promote "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." The philosophy is based on scientific laws that dictate that nothing else is important but profit, and that profit is achieved by the pursuit of cold, hard facts. Everything that isn't factual is considered "fancy," or imagination.

The wisdom of the heart is embodied in Sissy Jupe. Simple, considered uneducable, Sissy brings goodness and purity to bear on many of the characters, including Gradgrind. As he sees the products of his philosophy shattered around him, particularly Louisa and Tom, he begins to wonder if the wisdom of the heart that others have talked about really exists. Sissy proves to him that it does, and she salvages a great deal that might have been lost.