Summary Sissy’s education in the Gradgrind home and in M’Choakumchild’s school does not progress as rapidly as Mr. Gradgrind would desire. She — reared to wonder, to think, to love, and to believe in Fancy — cannot digest the volumes of Facts and figures given her. She cannot be categorized […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 9Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 8
Summary “Never Wonder,” the keynote of the Gradgrind educational system, is discussed by Louisa and Tom Gradgrind. Dickens’ satire on the educational system is expounded through young Tom’s dissatisfaction with his own education and Louisa’s desire to do and to learn more. She feels that there is something missing — […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 8Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 7
Summary This chapter is one of character portrayal. Here the reader meets Mrs. Sparsit, a member of the ancient Powler stock. A widow left penniless by her spendthrift former husband, she serves as Bounderby’s housekeeper. Depicted as a contrast to her employer, she does not contradict Bounderby to his face; […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 7Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapters 5-6
Summary In these two chapters, one gets a picture of Coketown and learns that Sissy Jupe’s father has abandoned her. Chapter 5, “The Keynote,” describes Coketown as a town of red brick sacred to Fact. It is a town in which all of the buildings are so much alike that […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapters 5-6Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 4
Summary Chapter 4, “Mr. Bounderby,” gives a portrait of this influential man. Described as a “Bully of Humility,” he is rich: a banker, merchant, and manufacturer. Although he is forty-seven or forty-eight years of age, he looks older. His one marked physical characteristic is the enlarged vein in his temple. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapter 4Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapters 1-3
Summary Book One consists of sixteen chapters in which are sown not only the seeds of the plot but also the seeds of the characters. As these seeds are sown, so shall they be reaped. These chapters, titled “The One Thing Needful,” “Murdering the Innocent,” and “A Loophole,” give the […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book One: Chapters 1-3About Hard Times
Hard Times, a social protest novel of nineteenth-century England, is aptly titled. Not only does the working class, known as the “Hands,” have a “hard time” in this novel; so do the other classes as well. Dickens divided the novel into three separate books, two of which, “Sowing” and “Reaping,” […]
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