Hard Times

1. Hard Times And the Battle Between Fact and Humanness: “You Shall Never Fancy.”

2. The Industrial Revolution or “Evolution” • Began in the mid-1700’s and lasted until the mid-1800’s. • The Industrial Revolution or “Evolution” had a profound impact on England as a whole regardless of its speed.

3. The People That Fuelled Industrialization—The Hands • The Revolution widened the gap between the “Haves” and “Have-Nots” through a system of unfair hiring practices, minimal wages, and no working-class representation in Parliament.

4. Hands Begin to Organize • The early 1800’s experienced the formation of unions. Mr. Slackbridge in Hard Times speaks out against Coketown because Bounderby claims he had a much harder life than the next and the Hands do not deserve luxuries that he was robbed of.

5. Jeremy Bentham, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, and the Philosophy of Utilitarianism • Jeremy Bentham introduced the Principle of Utility which had a profound effect on the English government. • Mr. Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times embodied this philosophy. He used it in his personal life on a daily basis; and also in his professional life as an educator and as a Member of Parliament.

6. Cecilia Jupe and Humanness • Cecilia Jupe, or Sissy as she was intimately known in Hard Times, was Mr. Gradgrind’s foil—she represented everything he worked to oppress, which was abstract notions such as imagination and emotion. • Embodiment of humanness, which in the context of this novel is everything a human is that cannot be reduced to a simple fact. • Sissy was the unlikely hero of the Gradgrind family; her symbol in the novel was the only thing the Gradgrinds turned to at the end.

7. Mr. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is Vanquished(Oh Snap), Well Almost… • The end of the novel reveals that Bounderby was not as “hard-up” as he claimed to have been. This disclosure unraveled his entire character (but not his power) because he prided himself as being the lad who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. • Being a self-made man was often his justification for not compromising with the Hands—if he had the strength to start in the “gutter” and end up as a lord of the smokestacks without any help, then why should he have mercy on his “spoiled” laborers? • Personal integrity and ethics were not valued in Hard Times because caring was costly and time was money.

8. Oh fantastical fortunes and whimsical fairies…their paths happen upon each other more oft than one can recall in long times past.