CHARLES DICKENS

Commonly known as
CharlesDickens.

He was born in
Portsmouth,England on February,
7th, 1812.

A writer and a social critic.

Considered as the finest writer in
the Victorian era according to the
scholars and critics ofthe 20th
century.

He had many successful works

such as: David Copperfield, Oliver
Twist, A Christmas Carol, Hard
Times, etc.
UTILITARIANISM AND CLASSICAL
ECONOMICS
 Louisa's education is not actually at fault for her
fate. The real problem is that the rest of the world
hasn't caught up to Gradgrind's progressive,
almost revolutionary way of educating
girls.Bounderby is clearly a terrible boss, but we
are not shown a different, better model.
 Thus, capitalism demands that large-scale
entrepreneurs regard their workers as he does
his, however distasteful. In this novel, Dickens
presents us with some children raised and
educated under this system. Their emotions are
repressed, their imaginations starved, and their
creativity discouraged. As a result, they grow into
adults that don't know how be moral and are
unable to understand or emotionally connect with
one anyone.
CREATIVITY AND THE IMAGINATION
In Hard Times, play and pleasure turn out to be a
kind of work that is just as difficult as factory
labor. No job is more physically demanding than
that of the circus performers, who are bruised
and beaten daily in order to create an
imaginative release for the otherwise mundane
lives of their audience.
The novel's takeaway message is repeated by Mr.
Sleary, the circus master: "the people must be
amused" if they are to remain human. If this
impulse toward what Dickens calls "fancy" is
ignored, it transforms into harmful self-
justification, destructive myth-making, and
unethical deception.
EDUCATION
The novel expresses the view that having an
emotional component to our education is crucial.
It's also shown in the novel that this kind of
learning can happen at any time in life.
Learning about the way other people live is the
groundwork for valuing them as fellow creatures;
learning about them only in terms of their
productivity is a recipe for class warfare. If this
proper groundwork is not laid, then a perverted
kind of learning can take its place, full of
cynicism and misanthropy.
WEALTH
Dickens does not fully understand the way the
production of wealth operates. His disapproval of
enterprise and capitalism, and simultaneous
rejection of the striking workers, demonstrates
his unfamiliarity with these concepts rather than
illustrating an alternative system that could be
implemented.
The characters who most strongly feel and care
about class differences are the ones who suffer
least from these differences.
POWER
The novel is deeply committed to a passive
resistance strategy. No weak character is ever
shown overcoming an obstacle through gathering
strength; instead, if he/she prevails, it is only
through the interference of others, luck, or
turning the other cheek.
The main way the novel demonstrates power is in
the brutal, non-subtle way it hammers home its
ideas. There is no one more powerful than the
narrator, and no one weaker than the reader who
cannot help but go along with the stark
presentation of characters and plot.
WOMEN AND FEMININITY
In rejecting the kind of education Louisa receives,
and in advocating for the kind of contented
submission Rachael sinks into after Stephen's
death, the novel is deeply conservative in its
conception of women.Statistics are a lot less
crucial to – or powerful over – the lives of women
than of men.
LOVE AND FAMILY
This novel is actually a tragic love story, not a
polemic about economic systems. In Hard Times,
the lower classes are emotionally more capable of
loving and being loved, because they do not have
the same kinds of distractions and opportunities
that the upper classes enjoy.

The novel advocates undergoing familial trauma

and loss in childhood as a way of developing into
a morally and emotionally functional adult
.Absent parents have just as much influence over
their children as present parents do.
MARRIAGE
The novel demonstrates the conflict between two
ways of thinking about marriage: as a romantic
partnership versus as primarily financial
arrangement. It argues that in neither case is it a
relationship that is meant to last forever.
MORALITY AND ETHICS
In the novel, the propensity toward moral behavior
is inborn. It can neither be taught to someone
who was not born with it, nor can it be untaught
if already present in a person .No one has the
moral upper hand in the novel because even the
most pure characters either have the desire to
commit an unspeakable and selfish acts or have
allowed highly unethical behavior to go on
without any attempt to stop it.
Submitted To:- Submitted By:-
Mrs.Niyanta Simran
Rollno.2155513
MA ENGLISH SEMII