Here is my second essay:
Charles Dickens and Struggles of the 19th Century
The early industrial period was a time of great turmoil and conflict in Great Britain. While the middle class was thriving, the working class struggled to survive day to day life. The types of middle class professions increased, the factory employment rate fluctuated, and political battles were fought; while some were triumphant, most of them failed. It was the Age of Enlightenment and reason. One trusted in the machine and never wavered from their belief in positive progress. It was a time when religion maintained its place in daily life and familial values were held dear. It was a time when the woman’s role was valued and the balance between logic and compassion was of extreme importance. Charles Dickens illustrates all of these aspects of the Industrial Period in his novel Hard Times.
In Hard Times, Dickens depicted characters that were representative of middle class citizens of England’s industrial period. Dickens grew up during the early 19th century and experienced many of the hardships faced by the working class. He also had the rare opportunity of enjoying the middle class lifestyle. At the age of twelve, he spent three months working in a blacking warehouse after the imprisonment of his father and he never forgot that torturous experience. Later on in his life, he became an accomplished novelist at the age of twenty-five and involved himself in organizations that helped to improve the living conditions of the poor.
The proletariats of England consisted mainly of mill workers who migrated into the more urban regions in search of employment opportunities. Dickens appropriately named them “Hands” in order to generalize and dehumanize them, as the working class was more often thought of as a collective and not appreciated as individual persons. With the rise in technological advancement, factory workers were considered dispensable. Textile production was the most common hand labor industry.
Although the first modern factory was founded in Venice, Italy, several hundred years before the industrial revolution, it only became popular in Great Britain in the late 18th century. Most factories were erected to hold large numbers of workers who were collected for mill work and maintained housing units for the workers as well.
"In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost fortifications of the citadel, where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, ever piece in a violent hurray for some one man’s purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a draught, were built an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes as though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be expected to be born in it." (102)
Slums began to develop, however, and manifested into very unsanitary and unfit living conditions. They were overcrowded, unclean, and often breeding grounds for disease and crime.
The honest, hard-working, Stephen Blackpool was the main character representative of the poor, in Hard Times. He was a virtuous man who worked as a factory loom weaver for a plant owned by Mr. Josiah Bounderby, an outspoken and obnoxious middle class man who was also in ownership of a bank. The relationship between these two men revealed the profound societal gap between middle and working class citizens of England. Bounderby was a self-absorbed man and frequently boasted of having been abandoned by his mother in a ditch and had struggled to fight his way up to his prestigious stature.
‘I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever excused her for it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her probably the very worst woman that ever lived in the world, except my drunk grandmother. There’s not family pride about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental humbug about me. I call a spade a spade. . .’ (74)
It is our discovery later on in the novel that this was completely contrived when it was uncovered that the mysterious old woman, befriended by Stephen Blackpool, was Mr. Bounderby’s mother.
‘Josiah in the gutter!’ exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. ‘No such thing, sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and cipher beautiful, and I’ve his books at home to show it! Aye have I!’ said Mrs Pegler, with indignant pride. ‘And my dear boy knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, to help him out in life and put him ‘prentice.’ (280)
This was a significant aspect of the novel and many believed that if Bounderby was capable of rising to such a distinctive position in society, than others of the working class should have been perfectly capable of rising to such feats as well. This was, however, not nearly as possible as it was assumed to be. Stephen Blackpool was evidence of that.
Blackpool faced many obstacles on account of his financial state. His main source of unrest was his unstable wife who continued to haunt him. She left him for years at a time, drank excessively, and did not treat him with any respect that she ought to have. He wished to divorce her because she depleted his funds and caused him unhappiness. In her absence, he had also fallen in love with another, more compassionate and loving woman. He did not have the means to do divorce her, however, as divorce laws were not only very complex, but also expensive and were only accessible to the wealthy.
"Why, you’d have to go to Doctors Commons with a suit, and you’d have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you’d have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it were a case of very plain-sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,’ said Mr. Bounderby." (113)
Stephen also fell into hard times with his weaving job at the factory. England was undergoing great political change in the 19th century and the area which most needed the government’s focus was the working standards of the working class. There were changes, but not enough and factory workers began forming unions. The factory that Stephen worked at in Hard Times also formed a union, however, Stephen was not willing to participate. He only wanted to make an honest living without causing any trouble, but this caused him strife with his co-workers. They felt that he was being disloyal and shunned him to express their disapproval.
Bounderby got wind of this news quite quickly and offered Blackpool the opportunity to spy on his fellow co-workers, however, the honest Stephen Blackpool was not willing to betray his friends and refused, in hopes of avoiding any trouble. He soon realized that the results were not his favor and he was fired by Bounderby. In his attempt to avoid conflict, he was betrayed by both Bounderby and his co-workers. He was forced to change his name in order to find work elsewhere, as was common at this time if you earned yourself a reputation as a troublemaker. Leaving Coketown and starting fresh was his only chance for survival.
Many middle class citizens were unaware of or ignored the hardships of the less fortunate; they focused on progress. The 19th century was the Age of Enlightenment and most focused on the more positive aspects of this period. There were new jobs that were being considered of higher socio-economic status such as the bankers, manufacturers, doctors, journalists, teachers, government employees, policemen, and engineers; the list continued to grow. Factories, for the middle class, did not only mean pollution, low wages, and slums, but it meant new job opportunities for those who had suffered a drought on their farms. It meant new goods and the development of technology, and most importantly, it meant progress. Many shared a similar point of view of the working class as Bounderby expressed to Stephen Blackpool. “You don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon as a good many of ‘em do!” (109) They maintained a strong Utilitarian attitude and tolerated more unfavorable aspects of the time for the perceived greater good of progress.
Despite most of the middle class’ ignorance of the working class, they all believed in leading a fulfilling domestic experience. They believed that home should be as a refuge from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It was among Dickens’ concerns, however, that soon the sanctuary of home would no longer be of existence with the rapid spread of industrialization. He illustrated this well in his depiction of the manner that the Gradgrind’s home was managed, as well as how the school was run. Even in the way that Dickens described Stone Lodge, the Gradgrind’s residence, you can see the value put on reason and the influence of industrialization.
"A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house with a portico darkening the principle windows, as it’s mater’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this wing: a total of twelve in the other wing: four and twenty carried over to the black wings. A lawn and garden and an infant avenue, all rules straight like a botanical account-book. four Gas and ventilation, drainage and water service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms; everything that the heart could desire." (54)
Mr. Thomas Gradgrind believed wholly in “fact and calculations” (48) and considered himself to be “eminently practical” (55) and ran his household and raised his children as such. It was unfortunate that, although he was a practical and reasonable man, he was an extremist in carrying out these views and forbade his children of any typical childlike fancies and indulgences. His eldest children Louisa Gradgrind and Tom Gradgrind received exceptional education, however, they were not taught of how to express themselves and grew up unhappy and starved of imagination. As adults, they were not able to adequately express emotions, nor did they know how and before they left Stone Lodge, they had no experiences of the outside world and the people they might encounter in it.
"You have been so careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart. You have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s belief or a child’s fear." (137)
She again laments to her father in an hour of great inner turmoil. Her marriage was failing and she had never known affection for any other than her brother, Tom.
"Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped my way by sense of touch, and had been free, while I knew the shapes and surfaces of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in regard to them; I should have been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good respects, than I am with the eyes I have." (240)
Louisa was lacking in womanly sensitivity and human compassion, however, her brother Tom Gradgrind, Jr. became Mr. Bounderby’s apprentice at a young age. He escaped the walls of his father’s prison into another. He became a manipulative, hedonistic, self-interested young man with an addiction to gambling. He expressed very little outward affection for his sister, the only human being that loved him unconditionally and he never came to realize how complete her adoration was for him. He sought only to solve his own troubles.
The results of Gradgrind’s unbending system of facts and logic were far from proving its perfection and it showing this, Dickens was able to stress the importance of balance in one’s life. In such a scientific age, it was easy to lose sight of the other end of the spectrum. Dickens appropriately weaves his other young female characters, Sissy Jupe and Rachael. Cecelia, or Sissy, was a young circus child whose father abandoned her and the circus; she was taken in by Mr. Gradgrind to be well educated as was her father’s last wish before his disappearance. Rachael was the kind female factory worker that Stephen Blackpool had fallen in love with.
Upon the failure of Louisa’s marriage to Bounderby, she was taken in by Sissy and was eventually taught the way of “childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights” (313). Louisa, though she was able to foster her natural affectionate side, never remarried. Her brother, Tom, did not fare well in the world either. In his desperation to repay his gambling debts, he robbed a bank. He was never caught, except by his family, but he was exiled to another country for fear that he would suffer dire punishment. He never saw his family again.
It was crucial that he would never be found, as in many cities, the gallows was still thought as an acceptable punishment. The penitentiary was also a new idea for England and often it was used as an experimental laboratory for social theorists. Although this method of punishment was preferable over transportation, the Penal Servitude Act, that ended transportation, only came into effect in 1853. It is also worthwhile to note that the first police force in England was not founded until 1829 and it was developed for London; many smaller cities used it as a model and created there own. Before the police force was implemented, there were many more capital sentences because it was so difficult for the law enforcers to catch the criminals, as there system was not longer adequate for fast growing cities. The criminals that they were able to catch, they sentenced them by example in hopes of dissuading other criminals from performing similar acts.
From Dickens’ own experiences, he was able to draw knowledge from his life that facilitated him to write about the 19th century Industrial Revolution. From his exposure to both the working class and middle class lifestyle, he was able to create a novel that reflected the living conditions of England at the time. Dickens described the life of a factory worker through characters such as Stephen Blackpool and Rachael, as well as the general attitudes that were felt in regards to the “Hands” through the many other characters in the novel. More specifically, he showed this through an outspoken and obnoxious bank and factory owner, by the name of Josiah Bounderby. Through him, we found that the working class was generally classified as lazy and immoral.
Dickens also explained through Hard Times that it was very difficult to gain a higher socio-economic rank than that which you were born into. This was demonstrated through Mr. Bounderby when, although he never ceased to find an opportunity to mention his maltreatment as a child, his façade was uncovered by the confession of his mother. Although she herself did not have the means to live an extravagant lifestyle, she raised her son with all the resources that she had so that he might have more opportunities than she. He was not, however, born in a ditch, nor was he quite the self-made man that he claimed to be. Thus, the working class could not have gained as many opportunities as he without a little help from elsewhere.
Due to such a lack in opportunities, many factory workers felt it necessary to form unions, as they though that it would help them become more recognized in their communities and might aid them in gaining the privileges from the government that they felt they deserved. This was never pleasing news for the mill owners, and often they would try to destroy the unions. In Hard Times, however, Stephen Blackpool felt that it would be more beneficial and that he would avoid confrontation by not joining the union. We are able to see how conniving the factory owners can be when Bounderby asks Stephen to become his spy and when he refuses, Bounderby fires him. This exemplifies how dispensable the factory workers were thought to be. We were also given a glimpse into the life of fugitives of crime through Stephen Blackpool after the false accusations made upon him and Louisa Gradgrind’s brother, Tom.
It also becomes apparent in the novel, of the importance of a peaceful and loving home. During the industrial revolution, it became essential that home was a refuge from the world, as the world was increasingly becoming a very fast-paced and sometimes frightening place to be, with the advances in technology and science. Dickens shows this well through Louisa Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby’s relationship, as she was not a very accommodating wife and was brought up on facts and calculations. This also stresses the value of balance between imagination and fact, rationalism and natural empathy in the 19th century.
Through his own experiences through the Industrial Revolution, Charles Dickens depicted the socio-economic living standards as he saw them. He also brought to our attention troubles that concerned him and that he felt should concern others as well. In an England that clung to technology and rationality, but also compassion and familial values, he demonstrated common obstacles and hardships that many individuals faced at this time. Whether one was wealthy or poor, male or female, child or adult, there were hardships faced by all in this period of conflict and opportunity.