Hard Times Group

Question:

adome1
adome1
Student
High School - 12th Grade

In the novel Hard Times, why does Dickens declare that Coketown's very existence is a wonder?

Rate question:

Posted by adome1 on Thursday November 5, 2009 at 6:43 AM and tagged with coketown, dickens, existence, hard times, setting.

Answers:


  1. pohnpei397 Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    In Book II, Chapter 1 of Hard Times, Charles Dickens says of Coketown, "the wonder is, it was there at all."  By saying this, he is criticizing and satirizing the attitudes of the bosses of the factories in Coketown.

    What he is criticizing is their total opposition to having any government laws regulating their businesses or being asked to allow their child workers to go to school or being asked to not emit so much smoke into the air.  He says that every time they were asked to do something like that they'd say they'd rather throw all their property in the ocean.

    So he's saying that if doing those things would threaten their businesses, their businesses must be very fragile and it was a wonder they could still be there.

    Rate answer:

    Posted by pohnpei397 on Thursday November 5, 2009 at 7:01 AM