DescriptionDespite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politici…
DescriptionThomas Gradgrind is an eminently practical man who believes in facts and statistics and has brought up his 2 children, Louisa and Tom, accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They are raised in ignorance of love and affection, and the consequences are devastating. No other work of Dickens presents so harsh an indictment against the attitude of life he associated with Utilitarianism. With savage bitterness Dickens exposes the devilish industries and institutions that exploited the bodies and minds of the vulnerable labor class.
DescriptionIn the spare, no-nonsense Gradgrind household, Tom and Louisa are raised according to their father's unyielding guiding philosophy: facts - nothing but facts. But while a ban on imagination is mere policy for the Gradgrind children, lack of whimsy is a necessary survival skill in Coketown, the grimy and grim working-class burg devoted to nothing but the relentless advance of industry...
DescriptionIn this, Dickens' most openly political novel, we discover the terrible human consequences of a ruthlessly materialistic philosophy in the lives of Thomas Gradgrind's family, brought up to believe that only "Facts! Facts! Facts!" have any meaning. Set in Coketown, a typical Lancashire milltown, the novel graphically exposesd the truth about Victorian "progress".
DescriptionOne of the most widely read of Dickens' major novels, Hard Times is Dickens' powerful and withering portrait of Coketown, a Lancashire mill town, in the 1840s. The novel is particularly harsh in indicting England's educational system, represented by Thomas Gradgrind, who runs a school in which he focuses on driving wonder, fancy, and imagination from children's minds to be replaced only by facts. Gradgrind finally sees the error of his ways and abandons Utilitarianism and resolves to learn the "philosophy" of the circus.
DescriptionWhy do some people struggle financially while others seem destined for more prosperous lives? What if you could enjoy a more abundant lifestyle without sacrificing anything you now hold dear, your values, your health, your spirituality, your freedom, your…
