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

Closely related to this theme is man's need for "amusement." Sleary, the owner of the traveling circus, insists that people can't work and learn all the time--an idea once odious to Gradgrind.

2. EXPLOITATION OF THE WORKING CLASS

We see this theme worked out through the character of Stephen Blackpool, a factory worker. Stephen's life is "a muddle," in part because he and the other workers are exploited from all sides. Their employer, Bounderby, thinks that their lives are easy and that their complaints stem from selfishness and greed. The utilitarians who run the schools and the government are interested only in profit. The union organizers are driven by power-hungry self-interest. At one point Stephen indicates that the workers have bad leaders because only bad leaders are offered to them. Throughout the novel, the workers are almost all faceless, nameless individuals. They are called by the reductive term "hands," because it is their working hands that are important to the employers--not their souls or brains or spirits.

3. THE EFFECTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Closely connected with the theme of exploitation, this theme is more all-encompassing. It reveals the abuses of a profit-hungry society that result in a variety of social disgraces: poor education of its children; smoke-filled cities and polluted water; dangerous factory machines; dreadful working conditions; substandard housing for the workers. This corrupt society is more interested in productivity and profit than in the health and happiness of its citizens. These issues are still relevant today in different degrees in different parts of the world; well over a century has passed since Dickens the reformer wrote Hard Times, but some of the abuses to which he called attention still linger.

4. THE FAILURE OF THE UTILITARIAN EDUCATION

The opening scene in M'Choakumchild's classroom sets the tone for this theme. Students are taught according to what is factual and are ordered to avoid anything imaginative. As governor of the school, Gradgrind not only sets the policy of hard facts but also practices it in the raising of his own five children. Educators like Gradgrind see children as "empty vessels" to be filled to the brim with facts and statistics. They never take into account the child's need for poetry, song, and fiction--those elements that feed the heart and soul, as well as the mind. The failure of this system is seen through Louisa and Tom Gradgrind, and the ambitious sneak Bitzer.

5. THE ARROGANCE OF THE UPPER CLASSES

Mrs. Sparsit and James Harthouse represent this theme. Mrs. Sparsit clings fiercely to her heritage and faded glamor. She is haughty to those "beneath" her and despises the efforts of the workers to organize a union.

Harthouse is revealed as cynical and directionless. He treats his seduction of Louisa as a diversion, without thinking of the consequences of his actions.

A related minor theme is the worship of the upper classes by those of the middle class. This is demonstrated in Bounderby's pride over Mrs. Sparsit's lofty background, in his acquisition of the trappings of wealth (despite his apparent disdain for them), and in Tom's admiration for Harthouse's worldly ways.

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

LOYALTY: Examples of loyalty (and its absence) are seen throughout the novel. Sissy remains loyal to her father and his memory, even though he deserted her. Rachael and Stephen are loyal to one another over the years despite their inability to be married. They both remain loyal to Mrs. Blackpool--he by enduring her presence, and Rachael by caring for her--when she comes to town. The most touching example of loyalty is Merrylegs, Jupe's dog, who leaves his master only after the old man is dead.

Those who prove to have no sense of loyalty include Tom, who turns away from Louisa, his devoted sister; Bounderby, who shuns his mother; Stephen's fellow workers, who reject him when he won't join the union; and Bitzer, who turns against his mentor, Gradgrind.

PARENT AND CHILD: Portraits of parents and their children figure significantly in Hard Times. Only Sissy and her father are seen in a positive light. All the others reveal mistreatment or indifference: Gradgrind and his brood; Bounderby and Mrs. Pegler; and Bitzer, who sends his mother to a workhouse.

IMPRISONMENT: The theme of imprisonment works both literally and symbolically. The workers of Coketown are imprisoned by their jobs and their lives, since they have no other place to go to find work. Stephen is trapped in this way, but also by the bonds of marriage, which for him are tightly wound. Gradgrind and Bounderby are imprisoned by their respective philosophies. Louisa is a prisoner of her father's educational principles. And all the characters are shackled by a society that cares less for them than it does for the "well-being" of the economy. Only Sissy, who follows the Golden Rule, seems free from these bonds, and it is she alone who "escapes" to happiness by the novel's end.

^^^^^^^^^^HARD TIMES: STYLE

Dickens's distinctive style is one of the most admired in the English language. Here are some of its notable characteristics, followed by examples from Hard Times.

1. USE OF WORDS AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Dickens had a great love of language, which reveals itself in elaborate descriptions of people, places, and events. Long, complex sentences are common, but the words are rarely wasted. When simplicity is called for, Dickens can be frugal with his words. If he does get carried away, remember that his readers were used to long, spacious books with full descriptions. Books provided the main source of entertainment for Victorians, so readers liked to get their money's worth!

Look at the second paragraph in Chapter 10, Book the First. (It begins "In the hardest working part of Coketown;"). The entire paragraph is one sentence, built of prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses that lead to the introduction of Stephen Blackpool. Not only is this device highly descriptive, but it underlines the importance of the subject of the sentence--Stephen Blackpool--and provides a very dramatic way to introduce him.

2. REPETITION

Repeating words and phrases within a sentence or paragraph adds emphasis and musicality to Dickens's prose (and makes it fun to read aloud).

Read carefully the second paragraph of Chapter 1 of Book the First, beginning "The scene was..." Notice the repetition of such phrases as "The emphasis was helped" and such words as "square." This technique is typical of Dickens's style, and is often imitated.

3. SYMBOLISM AND METAPHOR