Charles Dickens Research Paper

What do you know about the Victorian literature? most of the people especially the uneducated one, would not have any answer. But if you ask them about Charles Dickens who is one of the most popular novelists of that period, they absolutely know him well. Charles Dickens has great novels which are immortalized his name through centuries. One of these novels is Hard Times which is written in the middle of the nineteenth century. This novel talks about a family lived in an unreal and industrial city called Coketown in the south of England where no possibility of fiction and the plot in the novel raised according to this truth. According to Thoroddsen (2011) " The word coke refers to the treated coal that was used to power the factories

He considered as one of the main characters in the novel. Mr.Gradgrind married and has five children who are Louisa, Tom, Jane, Adam Smith and Malthus. He is from middle-class businessman and later a Member of Parliament. Also, he is the owner of a school where he taught his ideas which based on facts, calculating, rational self-interest . " he describes himself as an “eminently practical” man " (SparkNotes Editors). The educational system of Mr.Gradgrind's school shows us how he was a symbol for the theme of fact in Hard Times. At the beginning of the novel, chapter 1 particularly the first paragraph. Mr.Gradgrind was talked to a group of students in the classroom: " NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'" (Dickens,

Thoroddsen gave another comment on this part said: " Gradgrind is a Utilitarian theorist and his philosophy as such is that human nature can be governed by rules "(10). Then she turns to describe the concept of Utilitarianism and compare it with what Dickens presented.
"Utilitarianism was a method to govern society - life should be lived according to logic and facts, not intuition or feelings. Utilitarianism is a theory on actions that are clear cut, and which dictates that people decide on what is of the greatest utility for them but in Hard Times “Dickens gives the lie to the Utilitarian principle that pursuit of individual fortune benefits society as a whole” (Schlicke, xiii). "(10). Another thing that made Mr.Gradgrind as the main character who portrays the theme of fact in the novel is his treating with his children. In other words, the way that he used to rear them. In contrast to the nature of children which is characterized by fiction and fancy, Louisa and Tom - the oldest children of Mr.Gradgrind -were forbidden to think and act imaginary as any normal child in their