Hard Times

‘that what the Head had left undone and could not do, the Heart may have been doing silently.’ Mr Gardgrind.

As someone who is aspiring to be a bookworm, I felt that I can’t hold that title without reading a book by renowned British author Charles Dickens. Unable to find one of his more popular books I stumbled upon Hard Times and choose to read it was presented in the blurb as a ‘celebration of the power of the imagination.’.

The story starts out with an introduction to the Gradgrind family and how Mr Gradgrind teaches his children and students at the local school, in the interesting city of Coketown, the importance of ‘facts’, an understanding that Cecilia Jupe or Sissy, doesn’t seem to grasp so after an unfortunate event with her father, Mr Gardgind takes Sissy into his home to educate her and giver her a better future in life.

Although at this point in the book the direction of the story seems clear, at almost most two hundred pages in I became more unsure what the plot was and who to focus on as Dickens focalises passages on Mr Gardgrind’s children Louisa and Tom, the adopted child Sissy and even introduces a worker Stephen Blackpool. Along with the character focus being unclear as is the focus on imagination, with the only clear display of this being from the most rebellious child Louisa who gazes into ‘the fire’ reflecting the burning desires within her. After now reaching the end of the novel I could argue that the imagination is shown subtly by the desire of the characters in the novel, but not enough for me to enjoy. Regardless, I don’t feel that the book truly gets to a clear point until the end of the second part, more than half way through the novel which is in part why I struggled to read it.

The first half of the book can be regarded as exposition for the city of Coketown more than character development as Dickens writes words and phrases which reflect peoples speaking styles and consequently demonstrate their social class, most notably with Mr. Sleary. Also, I was very fascinated by Dickens’ spelling of ‘connexions’. However, the bursts of information about one character and then seemingly ignoring them for several chapters makes it hard to emote or care about any of them.

Overall, after dedicating too much time to book that I failed to keep my interest I can’t help but to disagree with F.R. Leavis in labelling Hard Times a ‘masterpiece’; however, I haven’t written of Dickens as an author and believe there are better introductions to his writing.