Katelyn Farvour

November 4th, 2022

Composition II

Dickens on Love

Charles Dickens wrote about family dynamics in all his books. From the Gradgrinds in

Hard Times to the Copperfield’s in David Copperfield to the Vardens and Willets of Barnaby

Rudge, he represents how a family’s function affects the actions and relationships of individuals.

When we turn to Hard Times, however, we find a consideration of how a family should not

work. Here Dickens emphasizes how a lack of love in any family dynamic, between mom and

dad or between parent and child, negatively impacts children as they grow into adults- something

he doesn’t do in other novels. In Barnaby Rudge, as Thomas J. Rice discusses in “A Vade

Mecum for the Theme of Domestic Government in Dickens,” he focuses solely on family

dynamics and function without commentary on the essential essence that holds the family

together. The relationships Dickens creates in Hard Times between father and child, the educated

and not, and evil versus good actions go to show how love makes every aspect of life better. This

widens the emotional scope of the book beyond what he did in Barnaby Rudge by addressing not

only the appearance of dysfunction but treating the underlying cause.

There are not many similarities between Dickens’s novels that are being contrasted here,

they are at odds in nearly every way. In Barnaby Rudge, Dickens details “the conflicting claims

of authority and liberty, the relative duties of family members, and the sacrosanct blood-

relationship of parent and child,” (Rice 84). He does this through the lens of familial

government, the contract that parents sign by creating children and the duty of care they take on

to keep them well and make them just people. There is nowhere in this representation that speaks

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to why they want to take on this burden or what keeps them attached after the kids are grown and

independent. This key element- the lack thereof, that is- explains why Hard Times has a different

impact than Barnaby Rudge. The goal in the latter was not to investigate the root of familial

conflicts, instead, “Dickens planned Barnaby to embody an impressive variety of family and […]

deviates slightly from his characteristic fictional attacks on social injustice in favor of a more

moderate affirmation on the established order,” (Rice 82). Rice goes on to mention that this

could be because he was looking to secure a different readership and enter a different echelon of

authors, which just furthers that Dickens was not trying to do any type of deep investigation or

analysis of anything other than the appearance of the family. The relationships are not held

together by a steadfast rule or by any cause other than the obligation of a parent to a child. This

would appease readers with conformity to social morals while also allowing him to write about a

subject of his interest- a best-of-both-worlds situation that he was not attempting to balance in

Hard Times.

In this contrasting novel, Dickens presents a new type of family narrative where readers

see Gradgrind continue to care for Louisa after she’s left, helping her leave Bounderby once she

expresses that desire. He listens to her and supports her in a way that can only be described as

undiplomatic, exclaiming when she reveals her feelings and trying but failing to support her in

the right way (Dickens 210-212). Lovingly, caringly, delicately, Mr. Gradgrind takes in all of

Louisa’s feelings and does not tell her that she is irrational or unsensible. He can only do this,

because he has been exposed to someone who knows how to love. No longer the Fact-based man

he used to be, her father now allows for feelings- desires, even- to take precedence over what

may otherwise be deemed more shrewd. Prior to his enlightenment, he would never have given

her complaints the time of day. When Louisa was first considering whether to marry Bounderby

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at all, she asked him if she loves Bounderby- because she herself did not know- and all he had

for a reply was: “Well, my child […] I -really- cannot take upon myself to say,” (Dickens 97).

He had no emotional input despite the deeply emotional nature of the decision to get married. He

was the person with the greatest deal of insight into Bounderby’s motives, into Louisa’s potential

interests, and into how this would affect them and the respective families- yet he was detached.

He furthered this distance by referencing marriage statistics regarding age and success rates.

None of this information is what Louisa came to him looking for, and it exemplifies that he was

only able to think in terms of Facts. So where did the enlightenment come from?

Cecilia Jupe. Sissy. A girl from a completely different type of life- one that Mr.

Gradgrind looked down upon until he got to know the members of the circus community. Before

the change, he “took no heed of these trivialities,” passing “these vagabonds” by without a

second thought until noticing his own children were spending time near the tents and deeming

them “disgraced,” (Dickens 18). Because the circus performers and their families were not

traditionally educated and did not adhere to the same social code as the rest of Coketown, they

were automatically below him. Their lack of concern with Facts and preference for entertainment

degraded their status in Gradgrind’s mind- and in those of all members of his own community.

He was set in this belief, so set that he could never have expected the impact Sissy would have

on his family because he didn’t consider what she brought to the table. Her relationship with her

father was a loving one, stemming from the love between her parents: “[f]ather loved me, first,

for her sake. He carried me about with him when I was quite a baby. We have never been

asunder from that time,” (Dickens 61). They were attached at the hip since she could remember,

a bond so unshakable she remained certain he would come back for her even after he had left

with all his earthly belongings. Her love is so strong that this possibility is absurd to her. It would

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not have been absurd to Louisa, though, if her own father had left without explanation because

she would assume that he had a business matter to take care of or a meeting to attend. She would

not have been shocked or distraught in the way Sissy was. If it weren’t for Sissy’s time living at

the Gradgrinds, Louisa’s father would have continued to be cold and distant, continued to

reinforce ideals over care.

This is the one instance of a relatively healthy family dynamic Dickens presents in Hard

Times or Barnaby Rudge. Barnaby includes a myriad of destructive relationships, in which a

“murderer has deserted his wife and child and is believed dead. Emma Haredale has been

orphaned and is living with her guardian uncle,” (Rice 85). Members of the same households

suspect one another of murder and live in a precarious balance of contempt and circumspection,

unwilling to confront one another for fear of disrupting society. Barnaby himself “is inevitable, if

unwittingly, enticed to repetition of the offense,” of his father, that offense being murder (Rice

85). Actions of those close to you influence your own, if only because you are exposed to them

and forced to consider themit for an extended period. It has seeped into Barnaby’s consciousness

whether he’d like it to or not, ultimately driving his choices in how he lives his life. The

connection between father and son is not dissimilar to that of Tom and his father, who’s Fact-

orientation led Tom to justify his crimes with statistics, absolving himself of blame. Sissy was

the only character capable of caring enough to disrupt the social order and confront a person

when they were creating an issue, and she did so because she loved Louisa. In the most

abundantly clear example of how love- and its expression- positively influences relationships,

Sissy goes to Harthouse and says, “You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as

you live,” (Dickens 224). She is speaking with such conviction to a man who holds himself to be

vastly superior with such conviction he cannot help acquiescing to her assertion. Sissy’s boldness

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comes from that love she has for Louisa, and she can use it with power because she grew up in a

community that did not suppress such action. She brought this to the Gradgrind house and

changed the members of the family for the better, but the pure love that was instilled in her could

not be matched. Not by learning to love, and certainly not by intellect.

In Hard Times, Dickens shows how a person can use a lack of Fact, and an abundance of

love, to be better than those who hold themselves to intellectual standards alone. Sissy is a far

better person than Tom, or Harthouse, or Barnaby in Barnaby Rudge. Thomas J. Rice outlines

how the diplomatic function of family leads to immoral actions and family dysfunction, allowing

readers to draw a clear distinction between what Dickens was trying to do in each novel,

respectively. Barnaby Rudge examines the external effect of a family without love, while Hard

Times delves deeper into why the family isn’t thriving, finding the root cause, and using a

character to light the way for the character to find a better way: love.

Katelyn:

This is a wonderful essay, from beginning to end. You do a great job of moving

efficiently into your focus, of summarizing your critical source, and then of articulating

your thesis, in which you make clear exactly what you’re adding to the conversation.

From here, the paper unfolds in a clear sequence – the focus on the

Gradgrind/Louisa/Sissy dynamic is especially effective. I know that you received an

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“A” on your first paper, but this one feels even more tightly constructed, and clearly

written throughout. Excellent all around.

Do you know about Fordham’s undergraduate journal Rhētorikós? It features the best

writing to come out of our composition courses each year – here is a link to the home

page if you’d like to take a look: https://rhetorikos.blog.fordham.edu/

You write so well, and have such good ideas, that we should keep this in mind if you

are happy what you come up with for the final paper.

Grade: A

Prof. Bugg

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles, and Kate Flint. Hard Times . Penguin Books, 2003.

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Rice, Thomas J. JSTOR, 1978, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44372582?
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