An Abstract on “Hard Times”
A great but not a popular novel
Hard Times
appeared in 1854 in weakly instalments in a periodical called
“ Household Words” of which Dickens himself was the editor. Soon after its first appearance, Dicken’s great contemporary, John Ruskin, expressed the view that in several respects it was Dicken’s greatest work and that it should especially be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. Many years later, G.B. Shaw also gave high praise to this novel. Still later, F.R Leavis is described it as a work of genius. Nevertheless, it has never been one of Dicken’s most popular novels.
The meaning of the title
Hard time is novel with a distinct social purpose. The expression “ hard times” generally means a period of slump or depression when food is scanty, when wages are low, and when unemployment is widespread. However, Dickens has not used this phrase in that sense. What Dickens means by this phrase is general state of affairs in which the lives of people are inhibited or restricted and in which people are prevented from giving a free and spontaneous outlet to their natural feelings and sentiments.
Hard Time is a novel in which Dickens fiercely attacks what he regarded as some of the evils afflicting Victorian society. He attacks an educational theory which was based upon “facts” and “statistics”, he attacks the motive of self-interest promoted by industrialism and utilitarianism; he attacks the unsatisfactory relationship between labour and capital; he attacks the callousness of factory- owners; he attacks the feverish but futile routine followed by members of Parliament and the sterility of Parliament itself.
Its tightly organized structure
As already indicated, Hard Times is somewhat deficient in plot-interest. But the story of this novel can be no means be described as tedious or dull. The various threads of the plot are successfully interwoven, and the various strands properly integrated. The novel tells the story of Gradgrind and his two children, Louisa and Tom; it tells the story of Bounderby, his wife, and his housekeeper; it tells the story of Stephen and Rachel; it tells us the story of Louisa, harthouse, and Mrs Sparsit; it tells us the story Gradgrind, Sissy, Louisa, and Tom; and of course it tells the story of the circus- folk. Modern critics have especially praised this novel for its tightly organized structure.
Pathetic
situations Dickens is a master of pathos and his novels abound in situations that arouse the reader’s deepest sympathies for those who suffer unjustly. There are a number of pathetic situations in this novel also. There are a number of pathetic situations in this novel also. There is, first of all, Sissy’s miserable plight when, as a small girl, she is abandoned by her
father. It is another matter that Sissy is adopted by Gradgrind who loks after her well, but Sissy certainly moves us to pity at the desertion of her father, though she continues to think that her father would return to her one day. Louisa’s marriage to Bounderby is also one of the pathetic situations in the novel. Louisa’s interview with Gradgrind, when the latter shows himself to be utterly blind to the folly that he is committing and the former is ironical and sarcastic in most of her remarks, moves us greatly. The two most pathetic situations in the novel, however, are firstly, Louisa’a flight from her husband’s house to take refuge at her father’s and secondly the death of Stephen. When Louisa, with a conflict raging in her breast, rushes to her father’s home and after briefly narrating her woeful story , sinks to the ground, we are deeply moved. Gradgrind’s state at this time is also pitiable. In fact, he now becomes a tragic figure, and his tragedy is later aggravated by the shocking revelation that the robbery at the bank was committed not by Stephen but by his son Tom. Louisa’s life is, of course, wrecked completely, and she too becomes an object of our deepest sympathy from the very start when he is introduced to us . His relationship with Rachel, an angelic character, is one of the moving aspects of the story. This relationship ends in disaster, with Stephen dying in tragic circumstances.
The element of humour
If Dickens is a master of pathos, he is equally great in creating humour and is, indeed, one of the greatest humorists in English literature. Hard Times is predominantly a novel of satire, using al the weapons in a satirist’s armoury: irony, sarcasm, mockery, ridicule, etc
A fascinating novel
According to one of the critics, Hard Times, though a limited success, is an endlessly fascinating work. The school- room scene, the description of Coketown, the hateful yet comic portrait of Bounderby, and the account of Mrs. Sparsit’s frantic chase of Louisa, illustrate Dickens at his best. In these passages and scenes, the pressure of the author’s language creates enduring images of locales, characters, and events, images that are liberated from the prosaic entailments of life and dependent on nothing but he genius of their maker.
According to another critic, there are sound reasons against considering Hard Times as masterpiece: but it remains in his opinion a work of great distinction, which performed for the first time the very important imaginative task of integrating the factory world into the world of nature and of humanity.