Hard Times as a Novel of Social Realism Is Wholly...

‘Hard Time’s as a novel of social realism is wholly unsuccessful. Do you agree? ‘Hard Times’ is a novel based on a short visit made by the author Charles Dickens to a town similar to ‘Coketown’ called Preston. He made this journey in an attempt to identify the social problem of the exploitation of factory workers. Dickens was sensitive to the social abuses which pervaded the Victorian society and so with an approach of a utilitarian denial of human imagination; he used the factories of the fictional Coketown and juxtaposed them with the contrasting, imaginative and bizarre world of Sleary’s circus. ‘Hard Times’ therefore deals with a range of social issues including divisions of a working class, rights of the ‘common people’ to engage in†¦show more content†¦The character who leads the circus, Sleary, could be perceived as an solution to the problem. In his speech ‘People mutht be amuthed. They cant alwayth be learning, nor yet they cant alwayth be working, they aint made for it’. H e speaks out against the industrial leaders of education, Gradgrind and Bounderby. Their view of life is solely materialist indicated by their methods of teaching, or rather enforcing facts upon anyone and everyone. This perception of life can and will be very limiting and is portrayed by Dickens throughout the novel showing how disastrously this way of life can fail. ‘Now what I want is facts, teach these boys and girls facts and nothing else.’ Dickens aim in this line of action could be to discredit the policies of this teaching method. The characters in Hard times are all what would be termed ‘flat’. There is no development. In the introduction of a character, the most prominent aspects are detailed such as Bounderby’s ‘Large brown protuberant eyes’ and there is an indication of the background of the character, however this introduction is held throughout the novel and lasts until the end of the narrative. The reader is given a psychological portrait of Bounderby for example as a ‘self-made man.’ He is an individual capitalist and arguably Capitalism personified. Dickens portrays the only favorable quality of this character to be that he has dragged himself from the impoverished society in which he was born, to theShow MoreRelatedShort Summary of the Great Gatsby11203 Words   |  45 Pagesfigure in the literary life of the university and made lifelong friendships with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. Despite these social coups, Fitzgerald struggled academically, a nd eventually flunked out of Princeton. Though he was able to return to university the following fall, Fitzgerald could not overcome the crushing humiliation he felt at the loss of all of his hard-won positions. In November 1917, he left Princeton in order to join the army. 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