hard times

A detailed Summary of hard times

Utilitarianism "Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in spring......" A perfect example of a product of utilitarian education, Bitzer defines a horse off the top of his head in a split second. Utilitarianism is the assumption that human beings act in a way that highlights their own self interest. It is based on factuality and leaves little room for imagination. Dickens provides three vivid examples of this utilitarian logic in Hard Times. The first; Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in the book, was the principal of a school in Coketown. He was a firm believer in utilitarianism and instilled this philosophy into the students at the school from a very young age, as well as his own children. Mr. Josiah Bounderby was also a practitioner of utilitarianism, but was more interested in the profit that stemmed from it. At the other end of the perspective, a group of circus members, who are th!

e total opposite of utilitarians, are added by Dickens to provide a sharp contrast from the ideas of Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind. Thomas Gradgrind Sr., a father of five children, has lived his life by the book and never strayed from his philosophy that

pool was told that he could not divorce his wife because it would be against the laws of England. Later in the book, Bounderby divorces his wife. This shows that wealth played a large role in determining the social classes that people were in and the privileges they had. This was definitely unfair but the social classes were structured in a way which allowed those who had money to look down upon those who were less fortunate. Generally, those who were not well-educated did not have any money, while the well-educated ones such as Bounderby and Gradgrind were wealthy. The people who 1knew the factual information, (utilitarians) were successful, while those who did not were reduced to working in the factories of the utilitarians. Dickens paints a vivid picture of this inequality between social classes and shows he does not care much for it. It is fairly easy to see that Dickens holds a contempt for Bounderby and the utilitarian philosophy he carries. The book details the philosop!

eing the owner of both a factory and a bank, Bounderby employs many workers, yet seems to offer them no respect at all. He refers to the factory workers as "Hands," because that is all they are to him. Bounderby often states that workers are all looking for "venison, turtle soup, and a golden spoon," while all they really want is decent working conditions and fair wage for their work. He is not concerned about his employees as human beings, but how much their hands can produce during the workday, resulting with money in his pocket. When one of his workers, Stephen Blackpool came to Bounderby's house asking for advice about his bad marriage, he was treated as inferior just because of his social status. Dickens portrayed the scene as one in which Blackpool was on a level five steps below Bounderby and his associates because he was a lowly worker who was obviously much less educated than them. It almost seemed like they would not even take him seriously because he was such. Black!

agination; which is the way life ought to be lived. Dickens obviously had a definitive opinion of the way life should be lived and did an excellent job of depicting it. His method was somewhat indirect in the sense that he worked backwards to get his point across, but turned out to be very effective as the story progressed. Most of the story revolved around utilitarianism and the study of cold hard facts, but when the character flaws began to surface as a result of this philosophy, Dickens is quick to emphasize them. One actually

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Approximate Word count = 1684
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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