Charles Dickens

Life and works:

Dickens was born in Portsmouth in England in 1812 ( eighteen-twelve). He had an unhappy childhood,
because his father went in prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of 12 (twelve). These
days of suffering inspired much of his novel. The most important novels are : Oliver Twist where Dickens
denounce the exploited lives of children in factory and Hard Times where he highlight the conditions of the
poor and the working class.

Hard Time’s plot

This novel is set in an imaginary industrial town named Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind is an educator who
believes in fact and statistic, he has founded a school where his theories are thoughts. He brings up also his
children in these way repressing their feelings and their imagination.

A critique of materialism

In Hard Times Dickens focuses on the differences between the rich and the poor and between factory owners
and workers. At Dickens time in fact workers were forced to work for long hours for low pay in dangerous
condition. He also criticise the materialism and the Victorian’s values that was turning man into machine
with no feeling and imagination. The message of this novel is that without compassion and imagination
humans are just like machines.