The Role’s Stephen Blackpool In Hard Time

Zahraa Hussain Abd AL-Ameer

Morning study

Third stage

Stephen is a power loom operator in Bounderby's factory. He married young,

and his wife has since become a raging alcoholic. Stephen is in love with
Rachael, another factory worker, but can't be with her because he can't get a
divorce. After being framed for bank robbery, Stephen ends up dying from
falling into a giant hole in the ground.

Most of the time in this novel, the factory workers are talked about as a large
group. Dickens describes them living their difficult lives in Coketown, while
Bounderby rants and raves about how they're all lazy and greedy. Stephen
counters all that by helping us find a face in the crowd. He's not just a "Hand,"
he is an individual and a human being. So much so, in fact, that he is willing to
not join the union like the rest of the workers. In response, they completely
shun and ignore him, making Stephen actually – and not just figuratively –
entirely independent and alone.

So Stephen is obviously in a hellacious marriage. Actually, when you think

about it, his personal life is probably the most soap-opera-ish of any character
here. He married young, and his wife is now a borderline psychotic alcoholic.
Stephen is so desperately in love with another woman that he almost
purposely lets his wife die. Things go really bad for him when he is framed for
bank robbery.

In this novel, the honor falls to Stephen, who is set up for it almost from the
very beginning (that's why he is introduced as a man of "perfect integrity").
The death of this kind of character (here, he is killed by falling into a
dangerous hole in the ground left unmarked by an uncaring factory owner) is
good a way to make a point without having to make an argument. Dickens
could have researched a bunch of facts about how badly factories treated their
workers. all that, he dies a pretty crazy slow death at the bottom of a hole in
the ground.

Stephen comes to ask Bounderby how to ditch his wife. Bounderby is all like
"well, marriage is forever, for better or worse." Of course, then he immediately
says that actually rich people with influence can get divorces. Stephen's only
way out of his marriage is death (either his or his wife's). Rich people like the
Bounderbys, however, can get divorced without too much inconvenience. Put
all this together, and what do you get? It looks like the novel may just be using
marriage to show us yet another disparity between the rich and the poor.

Through his efforts to resist the moral corruption on all sides, Stephen
becomes a martyr, or Christ figure, ultimately dying for Tom’s crime. When he
falls into a mine shaft on his way back to Coketown to clear his name of the
charge of robbing Bounderby’s bank, Stephen comforts himself by gazing at a
particularly bright star that seems to shine on him in his “pain and trouble.”
This star not only represents the ideals of virtue for which Stephen strives, but
also the happiness and tranquility that is lacking in his troubled life.
Moreover, his ability to find comfort in the star illustrates the importance of
imagination, which enables him to escape the cold, hard facts of his miserable
existence

Reference: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/hard-times-
dickens/stephen-blackpool#:~:text=Stephen%20is%20a%20power%20loom
%20operator%20in%20Bounderby's%20factory.&text=Stephen%20is%20in
%20love%20with,giant%20hole%20in%20the%20ground.

- https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hardtimes/character/stephen-blackpool/