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Circus Families
Circus Families
Jude V. Nixon
ENL 110-18
7 April 2015
A circus is a traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns that provides
performances, typically in a large tent and in many different locations. During the
19th century, circuses were growing in popularity and operating all throughout England.
They operated as family entertainment and gatherings, provided a welcome break for
working people. Since the performers who are part of the circus travel with one another
and see each other on a daily basis, they naturally growing into an extended family.
(Jando) Throughout Hard Times, Charles Dickens shows the difference between the
During the 19th century, circuses were beginning to operate all throughout
England. They were becoming very popular, and most acts were performed doing
different events. They would normally stay at one area for a about a month which gave
them time to practice for upcoming shows. Circus shows were not always outside under
a tent, they used to be in wooden buildings which would be used like a theater While
the main attraction was trick-riders, other acts included jugglers, trapeze acts, tightrope
walkers and clowns. Animals such as elephants and horses accompanied these
performers. The circus functioned as a pleasant interlude for the normally busy lives
people led. In Hard Times, Charles Dickens uses the circus as an ideal family unit amidst
One way that circus members were able to put on great shows together was
because they built a special relationship full of trust, commitment, and contribution. For
a family to be stable they must communicate, listen to one another, share thoughts and
contribute each other’s emotions. This does not happen to be the case for the
Gradgrinds. There is Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind and their children Louisa, Jane and Tom.
Gradgrind raises his children to believe nothing but facts, which gives them no time for
imagination or no time to express their emotions. Because of this, his children and wife
have become corrupt. Throughout the novel, we see how Mr. Grandgrinds philosophy
on facts affects his family. Starting with Ms. Gradgrind, Dickens presents her as weak
and passive because she cannot seem to function without her husbands assistance.
Gradgrind has manipulated her into believing that she has to depend on him for
everything. Louisa, the daughter, was raised to believe nothing but facts, which led her
to hide her feelings and emotions. When she gets married to Bounderby, she is not sure
if that is what she wants and she takes matters into her own hands. Towards the end of
book two, Louisa has an emotional breakdown about her childhood, about which she
confronts her father. She says, “How could you give me life, and take from me all the
inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the
graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O
father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this
great wilderness here!”(Dickens; Book 2 Chapter 12) At this point Louisa is telling her
father, Thomas Gradgrind, about how he has ruined her childhood by not raising her like
imagination emotions and because of that she is unable to live a normal life. As for Tom,
the son, he is raised same way as Louisa but he is different because he grows up looking
out for himself and he ends up hurting people along the way. He robs Bounderby’s bank
and sets up Stephen Blackpool to be blamed for the crime. Due to Gradgrind, Tom does
not know how to share or act towards certain things meaning he does not know what
he is doing is right or wrong, and confessing up to mistakes that he did, which lead him
to being careless. The Gradgrinds are a dysfunctional family whose members misbehave
because of how the family had been run. The family does not know how to speak to
each other about their problems because they were never taught how to go about it.
Towards this subject, critics said “Tom Gradgrind, more than his father, sees Louisa’s
families apart from providing a good financial deal to his sister. Tom employs a
exploitation. And he is not wrong in doing so.” (Williams) Critics are saying that
Grandgring was only watching out for the future of his children by making sure that they
will be financially stable which leads into happiness. They see nothing wrong in what
Considering that their marriage has little to do with love, Mr. Bounderby and
Louisa are also a dysfunctional family. This all began when Mr. Bounderby indirectly
proposes to Louisa through Mr. Gradgrind who plays the major role to the existence of
their marriage because Bounderby was his good friend and he knew he would take care
of her daughter. Louisa was not thinking the same, she says; “Father,' said Louisa, 'do
you think I love Mr. Bounderby?' Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this
unexpected question. 'Well, my child,' he returned, 'I — really — cannot take upon
myself to say.' 'Father,' pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, 'do you ask
me to love Mr. Bounderby?' 'My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.' 'Father,' she still
pursued, 'does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?' 'Really, my dear,' said Mr.
Gradgrind, 'it is difficult to answer your question.”(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 15) When
Louisa is asked about the proposal she turns the question to her father asking what she
should do. Of course, Louisa tries to please her father so she marries Bounderby.
“Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip to Lyons, in order that
Mr. Bounderby might take the opportunity of seeing how the Hands got on in those
parts, and whether they, too, required to be fed with gold spoons; the happy pair
departed for the railroad.” (Dickens Book 2 Chapter 16) Their honeymoon shows how
factories that are there rather than to only go to spend some time with his bride.
Louisa does not know how to love Bounderby because of her father’s philosophy
on facts that she was raised with. Louisa is challenges when James Harthouse moves to
Coketown. James Harthouse declares his love for Louisa, who then turns to her father
for help rather than her own husband. She does now how to act towards Harthouse that
she tells her father, “And I so young. In this condition, father—for I show you now,
without fear or favor, the ordinary deadened state of my mind as I know it—you
proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made a pretense to him or you that I
loved him. I knew, and, father, you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not
wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful to Tom. I made that
wild escape into something visionary, and have slowly found out how wild it
was.”(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 15) She confesses to her father that she never loved
Bounderby or that she never knew if she ever did. This shows that due to the lack of
emotional connection and communication, the relationship between Mr. Grangrind and
Louisa has progressively diminished the relationship between Louisa and Bounderby and
Louisa and Harthouse. The lack of love and communication within this marriage that
Gradgrinds philosophy portrayed in for financial and business needs causes this
marriage to be dysfunction.
the circus as his model family. A circus performer lives life with freedom, no worries,
humor and fun. When working in a circus, all you do is perform and act which is
something that you choose to do yourself. “A very different model from that of
European circuses, which for the most part remained under the control of performing
families.”(Victorian) Circus performers enjoy life with their large extended families who
love acting, supporting and running the circus business together. “Yet there was a
remarkable gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any
kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another, deserving
often of as much respect, and always of as much generous construction, as the every-
day virtues of any class of people in the world.”(Dickens Book 1 Chapter 6) Dickens
portrays the circus family as a perfect family who are a warm and caring family who
respect, work and help each other. Circus families are known to sacrifice for each other
and the idea of altruism; because of this they have a strong emotional connection. Tom
Grandgrinds actions towards the end of the novel when he seeks for help from the
circus shows how the circus family is Dickens model family that does function.
In all, circuses were becoming very popular during the 19th century. They
functioned as a pleasant interlude for the working people and entertainment for
families. Charles Dickens Hard Times is filled with many dysfunctional families that he
uses the circus as an ideal family. For the Grandgrinds, the philosophy that they grew up
with did not give the results that Tom Grandgrind wanted. For Mr. Bounderby and
Louisa, their marriage was not successful because Louisa was not taught how to love or
show affection to another human being. All these families proved the point that the
"Victorian Circus." Victoria and Albert Museum, Online Museum, Web Team,
Webmaster@vam.ac.uk. Victorian Circus, 2014. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.
Williams, Mukesh. "Dickens’ Hard Times in Our Hard Times »." The Copperfield Review.
WordPress, 28 Apr. 2012. Web. 04 May 2015.