Friday, 11 February 2022
Hard Times Key Passages
Book One
Chapter 1 ‘The One Thing Needful’
• Links to Chapter 2 ‘Murdering the Innocents’ - both from gospels in the Bible,
obvious to Victorian audience - Chapter 1 from the story of Martha and Mary,
which is twisted, facts = religion, critiquing modern society.
• ‘Now’ opening word, everything is in the present.
• ‘Plant nothing else’ agricultural metaphors, children are crops, plant facts into
them, facts = religion.
• ‘Reasoning animals’ dehumanising children, done throughout.
• Repetition of ‘Facts’, emphasised by capitalisation and exclamatives.
• Symbolic ‘The scene was…schoolroom.’, connects to theme of book.
• Repetition of ‘The emphasis was helped by’, reminiscent of a teacher teaching.
• Repetition of ‘square’ - trapping the children, he is rigid and uptight.
• Repetition of ‘nothing but Facts’ is philosophy of the book, ultimately fails.
• Being read out loud in Victorian era, repetition creates monotony and almost
rhythm - echoes machinery.
Chapter 2 ‘Murdering the Innocents’
• Chapter title + ‘pitchers…full of facts’ - children’s innocence murdered by facts.
• ‘Girl number twenty’, ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy’ - dehumanising, equation>person,
will become a fact (she is rei ed into an equation).
• Di erence between Sissy and Bitzer: ‘ray of sunlight’ represents society (‘same’
light but has a di erent e ect - Sissy remains full of life and personality ‘more
lustrous’, Bitzer is stripped of life and colour ‘draw out’ ‘little colour’, heartless).
• Bitzer does the “right thing” by knowing the facts, but he is lifeless because his
life has been replaced by facts - contrasts Sissy.
• ‘Would you paper…horses?’ ‘Would you use… owers upon it?’ ‘You musn’t
fancy’ ‘Fact, fact, fact’ erasing all individuality, Sissy is the only person who shows
any and she is presented as interesting and lively.
Chapter 3 ‘A Loophole’
1
ff ff ff fi fl
, Friday, 11 February 2022
• ‘A very regular feature…’ like the facts, life in Coketown, machinery etc.
• ‘Square’ like Gradgrind himself, ‘calculated’ ‘balanced’ house is like his
physiognomy, factual.
• ‘Everything’ makes sense, built to be practical, shows class privilege.
• Presented as cold, harsh like his parenting and teaching style.
• ‘“Louisa!!…Thomas did.’ - peeping at circus, deprived of fancy and imagination,
desperate to see something that isn’t just ‘facts’. Louisa foreshadowing her
rebellion and change of heart (‘“I have been tired a long time.”’).
• Tom ‘gave himself up to be taken home like a machine’: simile, links to Industrial
Revolution, his life is monotonous and dominated by facts, reluctant to allow
himself to return to this - he had to give up.
• Grouped wonder with laziness ‘“wonder, idleness and folly!”’, extremely harmful,
harsh method of education.
• ‘There was a light…groping its way.’ - explicitly shows direct results of facts being
valued more than imagination: children unhappy, uncertain, their lives lacking light.
• Repetition of ‘“Thomas and you”’ accusatory, dehumanises Louisa ‘you’ as she
takes the blame.
Chapter 4 ‘Mr Bounderby’
• ‘perfectly devoid of sentiment’ repeated in regards to Gradgrind and Boundary,
cold, uncaring - less sympathetic.
• Metaphor of ‘metallic laugh’, implications of machinery and the Industrial
Revolution; despite that he is a ‘rich’ ‘banker, merchant, manufacturer’, he is still
just a cog in the machine of society.
• Semantic eld of in ation: ‘big’, ‘stretched’, ‘pu ed’, ‘swelled’, ‘strained’, ‘lift’,
‘in ated like a balloon’, ‘blown’ could be physiognomy - in ates himself and his
achievements, personality too.
• Submissive ‘Mrs Gradgrind, a little…tumbling on her.’, reminiscent of a mouse,
lacks life due to ‘weighty piece of fact’ (Mr Gradgrind), further proof that fact and
this method of education stripped the life out of people (Bitzer too).
- ‘Mrs Gradgrind, weakly…enough light behind it’, like Louisa and Tom, her life
lacks light due to facts>wonder.
Chapter 5 ‘The Key-Note’
2
fl
fi fl ff fl
Hard Times Key Passages
Book One
Chapter 1 ‘The One Thing Needful’
• Links to Chapter 2 ‘Murdering the Innocents’ - both from gospels in the Bible,
obvious to Victorian audience - Chapter 1 from the story of Martha and Mary,
which is twisted, facts = religion, critiquing modern society.
• ‘Now’ opening word, everything is in the present.
• ‘Plant nothing else’ agricultural metaphors, children are crops, plant facts into
them, facts = religion.
• ‘Reasoning animals’ dehumanising children, done throughout.
• Repetition of ‘Facts’, emphasised by capitalisation and exclamatives.
• Symbolic ‘The scene was…schoolroom.’, connects to theme of book.
• Repetition of ‘The emphasis was helped by’, reminiscent of a teacher teaching.
• Repetition of ‘square’ - trapping the children, he is rigid and uptight.
• Repetition of ‘nothing but Facts’ is philosophy of the book, ultimately fails.
• Being read out loud in Victorian era, repetition creates monotony and almost
rhythm - echoes machinery.
Chapter 2 ‘Murdering the Innocents’
• Chapter title + ‘pitchers…full of facts’ - children’s innocence murdered by facts.
• ‘Girl number twenty’, ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy’ - dehumanising, equation>person,
will become a fact (she is rei ed into an equation).
• Di erence between Sissy and Bitzer: ‘ray of sunlight’ represents society (‘same’
light but has a di erent e ect - Sissy remains full of life and personality ‘more
lustrous’, Bitzer is stripped of life and colour ‘draw out’ ‘little colour’, heartless).
• Bitzer does the “right thing” by knowing the facts, but he is lifeless because his
life has been replaced by facts - contrasts Sissy.
• ‘Would you paper…horses?’ ‘Would you use… owers upon it?’ ‘You musn’t
fancy’ ‘Fact, fact, fact’ erasing all individuality, Sissy is the only person who shows
any and she is presented as interesting and lively.
Chapter 3 ‘A Loophole’
1
ff ff ff fi fl
, Friday, 11 February 2022
• ‘A very regular feature…’ like the facts, life in Coketown, machinery etc.
• ‘Square’ like Gradgrind himself, ‘calculated’ ‘balanced’ house is like his
physiognomy, factual.
• ‘Everything’ makes sense, built to be practical, shows class privilege.
• Presented as cold, harsh like his parenting and teaching style.
• ‘“Louisa!!…Thomas did.’ - peeping at circus, deprived of fancy and imagination,
desperate to see something that isn’t just ‘facts’. Louisa foreshadowing her
rebellion and change of heart (‘“I have been tired a long time.”’).
• Tom ‘gave himself up to be taken home like a machine’: simile, links to Industrial
Revolution, his life is monotonous and dominated by facts, reluctant to allow
himself to return to this - he had to give up.
• Grouped wonder with laziness ‘“wonder, idleness and folly!”’, extremely harmful,
harsh method of education.
• ‘There was a light…groping its way.’ - explicitly shows direct results of facts being
valued more than imagination: children unhappy, uncertain, their lives lacking light.
• Repetition of ‘“Thomas and you”’ accusatory, dehumanises Louisa ‘you’ as she
takes the blame.
Chapter 4 ‘Mr Bounderby’
• ‘perfectly devoid of sentiment’ repeated in regards to Gradgrind and Boundary,
cold, uncaring - less sympathetic.
• Metaphor of ‘metallic laugh’, implications of machinery and the Industrial
Revolution; despite that he is a ‘rich’ ‘banker, merchant, manufacturer’, he is still
just a cog in the machine of society.
• Semantic eld of in ation: ‘big’, ‘stretched’, ‘pu ed’, ‘swelled’, ‘strained’, ‘lift’,
‘in ated like a balloon’, ‘blown’ could be physiognomy - in ates himself and his
achievements, personality too.
• Submissive ‘Mrs Gradgrind, a little…tumbling on her.’, reminiscent of a mouse,
lacks life due to ‘weighty piece of fact’ (Mr Gradgrind), further proof that fact and
this method of education stripped the life out of people (Bitzer too).
- ‘Mrs Gradgrind, weakly…enough light behind it’, like Louisa and Tom, her life
lacks light due to facts>wonder.
Chapter 5 ‘The Key-Note’
2
fl
fi fl ff fl
