ENGL 5562: Victorian Literature
Dr. Sigler

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Hard Times (1854)

Reading and Discussion Questions

• The "Key-Note": As you read, look for references to children, to childhood, to individuals with childlike qualities, and to children's culture (e.g. activities and games, fairy tales, etc.) in Hard Times. What issues does Dickens use childhood to represent and/or critique?

• Why is everything at Thomas Gradgrind's school described as "square"? How would you describe the education offered there? What were its effects on its recipients (the Gradgrind children, Bitzer, Sissy Jupe)? What does the name "Gradgrind" suggest? Who is Mr. M'Choakumchild? What does his name reveal? How does Dickens's name and physical description of the schoolmaster help his emphasis?
• What notions did Gradgrind and his friends have about reason and "fancy" (imagination)? What relation, if any, do you see between Gradgrind's enthusiasm for "hard facts" and modern commerce and industry? What is the connection between Gradgrind's ideas and the tenets of Utilitarianism?
• Why is Gradgrind's home called "Stone Lodge"? What effects do Gradgrind's values have on his children? What are his children's names? Are those names significant?
• How is Mr. Josiah Bounderby described? What does his name suggest? What are his occupations? What is the significance of his supposedly being "a self-made man"? What stories does he tell about his childhood? What great irony is revealed with respect to that "Bully of humility" (21), the "hard facts" industrialist, Mr. Josiah Bounderby? 
• What is Coketown like? How is it described (28-31, 68-69 etc.)? What is the significance of the Coketown imagery ("red brick," "black canal," "serpents of smoke," etc.)?
• How do Bounderby and Gradgrind look at "labouring people" (30, 75, etc.)? What is their opinion of them? Why would they like to force them to attend church (30)? Why are they referred to as "the Hands" (68)?
• What is the function of Mr. Sleary's horse riding show in the book? How are the people of Sleary's company described? What specific terms are used in those descriptions (41-42)? What is the significance of the emphasis on mothers, fathers and children, their numbers, and the patterns of their acrobatics? What position does "play" and playfulness occupy in their lives? How about their affective relations? How do these people differ from the Gradgrinds and Bounderby?
• What is the significance of the figure of Mrs. Sparsit? What details are used to describe her? What sort of person is she? What does her name suggest? Why does Mrs. Sparsit live with Bounderby? What do Bounderby and Sparsit get from each other? Why is Mrs. Sparsit referred to as the "Bank Fairy" and the "Bank Dragon" (117)? See 187-90 for further characterization. What is the meaning of the "Staircase" which she imagines in connection to Louisa's fate (202)?
• Why did Louisa Gradgrind consent to marry Mr. Bounderby? What was Mrs. Sparsit's attitude toward Louisa? Toward Bounderby? What do you make of Mrs. Gradgrind? Discuss some of the attitudes men take toward different sorts of women in the book.
• What does Sissy Jupe respond to the question "What is the first principle of this science [Political Economy]" (60)?  What do Gradgrind and M'Choakumchild think of such an answer?
• Who is Stephen Blackpool? What sort of person is he? What is his profession? Is that activity symbolic in some way? Who is Rachael? What is the relationship between the two? What do their names evoke? Why does Stephen say that everything is a "muddle" (70)? What problems does Stephen have? Why does he seek Bounderby's help? What is the possible symbolic significance of Stephen's fall and rescue from the mine shaft? How about his death shortly afterward? Why is he said to have found the "God of the poor" (275)? What does that imply? What sort of a symbol is Stephen?
• Taking Mr. Bounderby and his "Hands" as representatives, what does the book tell us about the relations between capitalists and their wage laborers? What significance for English class relations do you find in the fact that Mrs. Sparsit, "A Powler," is in the employ of a "self-made man" like Mr. Bounderby? Notice that she insists on calling her "compensation" an "annual compliment."  How are the labor organizers and their tactics portrayed in the book? Why does Stephen Blackpool stay out of the union even at the cost of being shunned by his co-workers?
• "Whatever," is a word we hear often today (currently there's both a song and a movie named "Whatever," and you'll find it on bumper stickers). The term conveys a blasé attitude, an attitude of indifference, perhaps boredom. How does indifference figure into this book? Consider the character of Mr. James Harthouse in connection with these questions.
• What is the meaning of the imagery of "fairy palaces," serpents, and elephants (69, 73, 84)? What do those images describe? What do they suggest? What does Dickens mean by the "fictions of Coketown" (115, 122)? How are those fictions integrated into the construction of what is "reality" for many? Why is Bounderby's house referred to as "the red brick castle of the giant Bounderby" (149)? What does such a characterization evoke? What does it suggest about Bounderby? Hence, what role is Stephen playing as he goes to his house? (hint: see the reference to Jack the Giant Killer on page 282).
• What is Bitzer's role at the bank? What kind of person is he? What is his priority? How did he come to be what he is? What do you make of his idea that "all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient" (120)? What is the significance of his saying, "I don't want a wife and family" (122)? What are the implications of his saying "I belong to the bank" (149)?
• Who is James Harthouse? What does he represent? Why is he referred to as the "tempter" (139)? What is the Harthouse philosophy? (168-69, 179-80)? What is the nature of his relationship with Louisa? How is his character related to the social, economic, and spiritual issues in the novel? What does he represent in relation to the issues of utilitarianism and utilitarian philosophy?
• What is the nature of Louisa's relationship with her brother Tom? What may such a relationship symbolize given the concerns of the novel? (see pages 135 and 190-91 for suggestive evidence).
• What kind of a person is Tom? Why did he turn out that way? Why is he referred to as the "whelp"? Is is surprising that he turns out to be a thief?
• Who is the old woman, Mrs. Pegler, whom Stephen meets outside Bounderby's house?
• What is the significance of the passage describing the parting of Rachael and Stephen ('It was but a hurried parting ...) (165-66)? What is Dickens warning about?
• What is the meaning of Louisa's confrontation with her father in the final chapter of Book 2 (215ff.)? What revelations are made there? Does the meeting have an effect on Gradgrind? Why did Dickens name this chapter "Down"?
• Why is Tom hidden by the circus people? What is the significance of his disguise?
• What do you make of the endings which Dickens devises for the lives of the various protagonists?