Initatial Thoughts on Hard Times

Thus far, what I have noticed most about the book Hard Times by Dickens are the themes he brings in right away. For me, I noticed most the themes of Education, Machine, and Imagination. So far the characters have been revolved around the idea of what education should be like. Thomas Gradgrind sees education as fact. He does not believe in any other way of education than fact. Everything Gradgrind explains is mathematical or scientific—to the point. He has no business with creativity or imagination. Even when it came to his family he says, “I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the education of the reason of my family.” (Dickens, 22). His parenting style and how he picked is wife is extremely factual. He did not base his wife on love or his feels… he based it off factual evidence and was scientific in how he chose a wife. The theme machine is also very prevelant. In a quote he says, “Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken like a machine” (Dickens, 17). I’m interested to see how this plays out in the rest of the book. Maybe, Gradgrind is the machine and he will get worn down? Or maybe he wants to see everything as a machine like he sees everything as fact. We shall see. With the theme Imagination I believe this will be a strong theme because of the lack of inspiration so far. Gradgrind tell his children that that sort of thinking is discouraged and he has trained his family to be anything but creative. I see Louisa, from her character so far, as getting out of that and people the member of the family to branch out of this shell. Although these are just my estimations for the book later on.

 The writing technique that Dickens has used so far is different than the way he presents his characters. Gradgrind is (as I have said previously) extremely factual, but the way Dickens writes is very creative. His punctuation and the freelance of his sentence structure is anything but factual. It reads easily and amplifies the characters in what they are saying. With the quote I had used previously, “I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the education of the reason of my family.” (Dickens, 22) Dickens used parenthesis to add a side comment to what Gradgrind was saying. By using the parenthesis instead of a dash or not having the side comment at all showed Gradgrind’s need for fact and professionalism because parenthesis show that. While the fact that Gradgrind was saying something with a side comment shows his arrogance and shows his characterization.

I have always loved reading Charles Dickens. My freshman year of High School we read A Tale of Two Cities and I was in awe. It may have been because I felt old because I was reading Charles Dickens or because I am a literature nerd and love imagery... either way I am excited to read another Charles Dickens book. I have also always loved A Christmas Carol. Dickens use of narrative and character development is astounding to me and I am excited to see what he does with Thomas Gradgrind and his character development.