Charles Dickens Research Paper

“You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them” (1). Charles Dickens in his fictional novel Hard Times criticizes the industrialized Victorian society that sought to ditch the passions of the heart in order mechanize and maximize the efficiency and utility of the masses. Dickens renders the utilitarian philosophy that is epitomized by Gradgrind’s school to be destructive and sinister, critiquing the schools in Victorian England at the time. Moreover, this critique of Gradgrind’s school also directly reflects the larger, zealous industrialized society that exists outside—both in Coketown and in the real world. By emphasizing and contrasting the ideas of “fact” and “fancy,” Dickens

The first line of the novel starts with a speech given by Mr. Gradgrind to his students at the school: “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." Mr. Gradgrind’s way of teaching seeks to force his quality of being “eminently practical” upon his young students by smothering them with what he deems are facts. This harsh opening already gives a condemning impression of Gradgrind and the school’s way of teaching that strips students of their innocence and freedom by forcing joyless education methods on

Gradgrind’s home and classroom and the previously noted abuse of the classrooms are amplified in Coketown’s industrial factories, where machinery is “chopping people up” and the workers die “young and misshapen”. Although Coketown appears mighty and deathless with its fuming factories of smoke and fire and its tyranny over the workers, Coketown is inherently feeble with without a moral and emotional foundation, a city that throbs “feebly like a fainting pulse”. The city’s weakness is further supported by the poor quality of the buildings and air that are “shrouded in a haze of its own” and “a blur of soot and smoke.” Dickens continues using powerful imagery and metaphor to suggest that Coketown is corrupt and sinful, saying that Coketown is “nothing but masses of darkness” that “aspir[es] to the vault of Heaven,” with its chimneys “rising up into the air like competing Towers of Babel”. These descriptions heavily accuse industrialism of being corrupt and sinful, to both society and the individual, and condemn the perpetuators of