Concetti Chiave
- The novel is set in the fictional industrial city of Coketown, highlighting the harsh realities of 19th-century industrial life.
- Thomas Gradgrind, an educator, uses his school to suppress children's imagination and emotions, affecting both his students and his own children, Louisa and Tom.
- Louisa marries the much older Josiah Bounderby for her brother's benefit, leading to her unhappiness, while Tom's laziness and crime eventually force him to flee.
- The book is structured into three sections—Sowing, Reaping, and Garnering—illustrating the consequences of Gradgrind's education system.
- Dickens critiques the Victorian era's materialism and social inequalities, depicting the dangers of treating humans like emotionless machines.
The setting of the novel is the imaginary industrial city of Coketown.
Thomas Gradgrind is one of the character: he is an educator who has founded a school where he taught his theories; his two children also went to his school, their name are Louisa and Tom. both with his students and with his children, Thomas through the use of his school methods, repressed in every way children’s imagination and feelings.
He marries his daughter to Josiah Bounderby: he was a rich banker, but he also was 30 years older than Louisa.
But Tom is lazy and selfish and so he decided to rob the employer; at first he isn’t accused, but then he is finally discovered and so he has to leave the country.
The book is divided in three sections, and each sections is divided in three separate chapters:
the first section, Sowing, shows the seeds planted by Gradgrind education;
the second section, Reaping, reveals the harvesting of these seeds, as Louisa’s unhappy marriage and Tom’s criminal ways;
the third section, Garnering, gives all the details.
The entire work focuses on the difference between the rich and poor, also factors owners and workers, who were forced to work long hours for low pay in dangerous factories.
Workers lacked of education, so they had few options in order to improve their terrible living and working conditions.
This novel so wants to denounce the gap between the rich and poor and also Dickens wanted to criticize the materialism and all the features of the Victorian society.
Hard Times suggests how the England of the 19th century wanted to turn human beings into machines by avoiding their emotions and imaginations. This is not only made by Gradgrind, but also by Bounderby, since he treats his factory workers as emotionless objects.
Mr Gradgrind believes that everything is ruled and controlled by rational rules; in fact, in his school he wants to turn children into little machines that act by following these rules.
Dickens’ aim, in this novel, is to show the dangers of allowing humans to become like machines.
Domande da interrogazione
- Qual è l'ambientazione del romanzo e chi è Thomas Gradgrind?
- Quali sono le conseguenze dell'educazione di Gradgrind sui suoi figli?
- Qual è il messaggio principale del romanzo riguardo alla società vittoriana?
L'ambientazione del romanzo è la città industriale immaginaria di Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind è un educatore che ha fondato una scuola basata sulle sue teorie, dove reprime l'immaginazione e i sentimenti dei bambini, inclusi i suoi figli Louisa e Tom.
L'educazione di Gradgrind porta Louisa a un matrimonio infelice con Josiah Bounderby per aiutare il fratello Tom, che finisce per rubare al datore di lavoro e deve lasciare il paese.
Il romanzo denuncia il divario tra ricchi e poveri e critica il materialismo della società vittoriana, mostrando come l'Inghilterra del XIX secolo cercasse di trasformare gli esseri umani in macchine, ignorando emozioni e immaginazione.
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