Dickens and the poetry we have been reading all take a stand in protesting some aspect of Victorian culture and society. What issues and motifs do you see repeated in these works? What connections can you see between them?
Yep. Think about your essays here. Use this space to discuss your ideas and each other.
What impressed me in particular about Hard Times is the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution. I will have to do more research on this, but I think that the new manufacturing processes brought great wealth to some people, like Bounderby for example. It’s possible that the standard of living was improved even for people like the Hands. I’m thinking the Industrial Revolution may have caused a significant migration to the cities because factory work was maybe better than starving on a rural farm during a time of crop failure. In addition, when things are mass produced instead of hand made, I would think that the prices for things would have become more affordable. But, as I said, I’ll have to do more research on this. Hard Times and some of the poems do not discuss the advantages, though. These works examine the negative side effects of mechanization. The image that I keep thinking of is in Hard Times where Dickens describes Coketown and the factories. He describes the machinery “where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long…the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down” etc. (27). It seems like this new mode of production turned people into machines – for example, Gradgrind’s educational philosophy, and Bounderby’s attitude – they are like machines – all reason and no compassion. Even Louisa and Tom have been transformed into machines by their upbringing. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution also turned people into slaves – slaves to the machines. The Hands were slaves to the actual machinery, and also to the factory owners. Even Louisa and Tom, although they don’t work in a factory, seem like slaves to the Gradgrind ‘system’. Louisa seems filled with despair in this kind of slavery, as she sits and stares into the fire day after day. She says one day to her mother, “it [the fire] made me think … how short my life would be, and how little I could hope to do in it” (57). Tom displays his desperation also, saying, “I am sick of my life … I hate it altogether” (54). These seem like the sentiments of slaves. Although the Industrial Revolution may have brought progress and advantages to society, Hard Times discusses how the excesses and negative aspects that came with mass production affected both the wealthy upper class and the poor.
ReplyDeleteThe main issue I see between Dickens and the poetry we have read and discussed are about different forms of slavery justified through greed, philosophy and religion. For example, the slave trade, the oppression of women, the abuses of child labor, greed, abusive labor laws that affected the working class and the turning away from Christian values to a more Utilitarian way of life. Dickens and the poetry authors remind their readers of the consequences of these social ills and the consequences of remaining silent.
ReplyDeleteDickens speaks throughout Hard Times by the turning away of Christian values to a more secular philosophy. He shows the ultimate consequences of this Utilitarian set of values that children and society will suffer. Likewise, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Cry of the Children, cries out to audiences about the abuses of children through labor and the need for laws to abolish it. Yet it also points out the issue of how religion, Christianity in particular, turn away from these cries and do not seek the justice they speak for the children’s both physical health, and the well being of their souls.
There is also the issue of the oppression of women within society, families, and religion. Dickens writes about the loveless marriage between Louisa and Bounderby, the inability for Stephen and Rachael to be together because of both social and religious laws against divorce, the obvious lesser status Mrs. Gradgrind holds in her own home and Mrs. Sparsit’s society status being taken away because of the inheritance laws that rejected any justice for women after the death of their husband. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, also points out how women are seen only to serve men. As a slave woman, who tried to escape slavery and killed her daughter because she was the outcome of a rape by a white man, is being hunted down not because of the killing but because she was of more use to her master as a slave for both labor and sex.
Dickens also writes about how Christianity failed to seek justice for those who needed it the most. Any of the poems we have read seek the different types of injustices Dickens speaks of in Hard Times. From EBB’s poems, which consist of slavery, the oppression of women and children, to Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol, that seeks his readers to see what he deems the hypocrisy that is involved when the death penalty is imparted by a criminal system to a criminal who killed his victim. In other words the injustice he sees of a death for a death.
Hard times and the poetry we've read illustrate how socially inconsistent the Industrial Age in Victorian society was. Dickens shows through the relationships bewteen his main characters how gender and social inequality influenced the lives of individual people. Stephen and Louisa's relationships implicitly advocate for the need of marriage and divorce reform.
ReplyDeleteDickens also demonstrates the concept of Christian philosophy and is needed in order to achieve the salvation of its major characters. Louisa must serve as a sacrifice for her father's salvation by letting go of her own desires and ambitions. Stephen must pay with his own life for the sinful anger he bore towards Louisa, so that he may be redeemed.
The concept of Time in a Fact driven and mechanical world is portrayed by both Dickens and Rossetti in The Burden of Ninevah. The way Time passes in Coketown is reminiscent of the wheels of the mill and factory. Time is repetitive and circular, never progressing, never different. It has no past or future but is forever bound in the never changing present.
Rosetti's calf from Ninevah creates a similar concept. the calf once from the ancient city of Ninevah, now resides in a musuem in England. But when British civilization is gone, how will people be able to distinguish from the ruins, what was Ninevah's and what was England's? The future of England and its past will have nothing to set itself apart from other cultures since it is only a collection of other civilazations.
I find the most interesting aspect in the pieces to be that, in general, the most innocent and moral receive the most suffering.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Cry of the Children” obviously the victims are the children, the ones we associate innocence with the most. They have done nothing wrong, yet they find themselves receiving the harshest tasks, considering their ages. They were younger, weaker, and smaller, and – perhaps the worst of all – they lost their childhoods. The adults who experienced the pains of labor did not experience this loss.
In Hard Times we see Stephen, possibly the most upstanding character, experiences much distress throughout the novel. He is first declined a divorce due to finances, later mistreated by the factory owner, then deceived and setup by Tom, and eventually loses his life.
Rachel, though innocent of any wrong doing, also suffers from her social status. Though it is inferred, we assume that Stephen sought a divorce to not only separate from his wife, but to be able to marry Rachel. Both Stephen and Rachel suffer from the lack of money (due to their low social status) to fund the divorce.
Response to Zampak:
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about the oppression of women in society as it is portrayed in Hard Times and the poems. I hadn't thought of that. It seems obvious to me now that Louisa's purpose is just to serve Bounderby's needs and wants, and that also applies to Mrs. Sparsit as well, except that she handles the situation in a different way. Mrs. Sparsit knows who the power is, and she plays psychological games to get what she wants. Louisa, by contrast is pretty passive. I was thinking also about Stephen's wife - maybe she's just a casualty, not of Stephen, but of the society. Her alcoholism could be her way of dealing with it. But there is a good correspondence between the women in Hard Times with The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point.
There are several themes and motifs that are repeated throughout the Victorian writers.
ReplyDeleteOne theme is the idea that Christian values are set aside for material gain or prejudice. The business men in Hard Times have no problems throwing away Christian values in order to get ahead in the world and throwing the lower class under the wheel and letting them work harder and in dangerous conditions. E.B.B. also uses this tactic in "The Cry of the Children" when she uses the idea of God turning His back on the children because that is all they know of the world, and how can God make them do something so terrible.
There is also a theme of gender inequality that rings true throughout the literature. Dickens shows us how Louisa cannot divorce Bounderby and is bound to him even though he will not see her. We also see how Mrs. Sparsit is treated throughout the story, even though she is of a higher class, Bounderby treats her as a servant. Inequality extends to that of the lower classes as well, creating this image of good people suffering "hard times" inflicted on them by those of the upper class. Tom manipulates Stephen into going to the bank in order to frame him for theft.
There is also an idea of an under-appreciation of the world and the changes it brings. Coketown is suspended in this perpetual state of unhappiness and the employees cannot enjoy anything in life, partly because they cannot afford it, but partly they associate it with something out of reach, like in the "Crystal Palace". Also, Rosetti expresses this in "The Burden of Ninevah" by showing us that we do not know what it is, where it is from, and how we cannot appreciate its value.
One main theme that I've noticed in our readings is the recurring theme of social inequalities and how the under-represented members of society are expected to accept life as it is forced upon them.
ReplyDeleteBounderby in Dickens' "Hard Times" is a prime example of the upper class expecting the lower class to be happy with their lot. If for some reason they speak out against the unfairness of it all, people start thinking that they want too much--like when Bounderby claims that all Hands want to be fed venison with a golden spoon. This view of the working class is erroneous and unfair, but as readers we can see the flaws in this way of thinking. It takes away from the reality of life and the working man's (and woman's) plight.
Dickens, along with other authors like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, tries to show the compassionate and true side of the working class. Dickens contrasts the wants and needs of the working class with the upper class whereas E.B.B attempts to speak for the working class directly. E.B.B's "Cry of the Children" and "The Slave at Pilgrim's Point" are both testimonies for the minorities in Victorian society, but she presents their attitudes with such a raw intensity that it makes me wonder if she is even really able to empathize with those very characters she is trying to portray.
In other poems we have read, the lower class have all been presented to us as uneducated and uncultured. They lack the skills to understand the "simple riches" of life such as artwork and literature--mediums of culture. The "Crystal Palace" is an example of this. In this poem, the masses want what the rich people have, but they don't take the time to value the beauty that is around them. They only see this day as a day off from work. They are so used to toiling all day long that they don't know how to enjoy a few hours of rest. In "The Burden of Nineveh" Dante Gabriel Rossetti points out that everyone, not only the lower classes, is prone to overlook the wonders of the world. People live day to day, paycheck to paycheck, and before they know it, life is over and they have missed everything.
To me, it seems like the rich are too busy trying to stay rich and impress others around them, even when they have to lie to do it (Bounderby), and the poor are too busy working to be able to truly enjoy life. In my opinion, both the upper and lower classes are missing out and not truly enjoying life because they are too busy living from one boring day to the next. It's like a hamster running in its wheel--no matter how fast it runs, it hasn't moved at all. All that happens is that the poor little hamster gets tired. It goes to sleep only to wake up the next day and do the same thing until one day it doesn't wake up.
Joy,
ReplyDeleteI seemed to focus mainly on one thing but I noticed that you brought up very good points in your response. I agree that the approach to Christianity and the existence of gender inequality are both very good themes. Christianity actually plays a huge role in the way that the authors point out flaws in the Victorian materialistic society...
Conner, In response to:
ReplyDelete"Dickens also demonstrates the concept of Christian philosophy and is needed in order to achieve the salvation of its major characters. Louisa must serve as a sacrifice for her father's salvation by letting go of her own desires and ambitions. Stephen must pay with his own life for the sinful anger he bore towards Louisa, so that he may be redeemed."
I never really thought of Louisa sacrificing herself for her father until I read an analysis of this. You bring up a a great point! It just shows how Dickens reiterates the cycle of how women were always for the needs of men, however they (not the women themselves) deemed necessary. Thanks!
In a majority of Dickens work I see an issue where marriages are arranged and education was really geared more towards the young boys and men of the well to do class. There is also the difference in the idea of labor. In the middle and upper classes the women did not work but stayed how and minded the affairs of the household and rearing of the children. An example of an arranged marriage can be seen in Mr. Bounderby and Louisa’s courtship which was not a courtship at all but merely the suitor going to the father and asking for the daughters hand in marriage. After reading the novel, Hard Times I noticed how the idea of education to Mr. Gradgrind was based on facts but also it seemed that it was geared more towards the boys more than with the girls. AN example would be when Mr. Gradgrind asked Sissy Jupe about horses and when she could not answer he acknowledged Biter who answered with all sorts of facts pertaining to the structure and makings of a horse. There is also the inhumane treatment of the “Hands” who were a lower class group of people. They worked in the mines and in the warehouses running machines like the children and women in the poem “The Cry of the Children. Most of the poetry that we have read so far focuses on the role of the woman in the Victorian household and how she should conduct herself from a maid to a wife to the story of all types of people becoming a slave either to the machines or to their way of life.
ReplyDeleteZampak
ReplyDeleteI agree with your view of Christianity in the other poems but I don’t quit agree with the idea that Oscar wanted “his readers to see what he deems the hypocrisy that is involved when the death penalty is imparted by a criminal system to a criminal who killed his victim.” In the “The ballad of Reading Gaol” I would say the criminal got what was expected after he was judged by a jury. Even in todays society when a criminal is held for murder a jury agrees that the penalty for murder is more than likely death. We do not know the exact story which led up to the man who murdered his lover but only what the author has written to give us some idea that he himself was unjustly punished for having immoral character towards the same sex.
In response to Claudia:
ReplyDeleteClaudia said, “the under-represented members of society are expected to accept life as it is forced upon them.” I very much agree with this statement. They are expected by people like Bounderby to accept their lives and that is what they do. For the most part, they do not question it. Even when they do question it or challenge it in some way, it is always in a tasteful manner. For example, Stephen’s attempt to divorce his wife is declined and accompanied with reasons that are degrading to his social status. Stephen’s refusal to join the union causes him to lose his job and become ostracized, even from those he works with.
In the last paragraph you mention that, “both the upper and lower classes are missing out.” I think this is a good observation. I believe the two classes represented are extremes; the middle class is not much addressed. As a reader, we must be aware of this and realize that though the novel highlights the lack of appreciation for life in the lives of the upper class, the lower class do not fully appreciate life either. I believe the main difference is that the upper class does not care to appreciate life and the lower class simply does not know how because they are blinded by the burdens forced upon them.
Andrea- I really love the idea that the most innocent and moral suffer the most. It echoes throughout all the poetry we have read, sometimes in an inadvertent way. I really agree with that statement.
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