Hard Times Questions and Answers
Hard Times
Discuss the theme of fact and fancy in Hard Times.
Fact and fancy represent radically different and largely irreconcilable worldviews in Hard Times. The former is represented by Mr. Gradgrind, the utilitarian pedant who insists on facts as being...
Hard Times
What's the significance of the title Hard Times?
The title of Hard Times is significant because it shows exactly that: that the majority of the people in England, particularly those in the working classes, really were having a hard time. Take...
Hard Times
What is the significance of Coketown in the novel Hard Times?
In Hard Times, Coketown is both a primary setting and a symbol of the novel’s themes. Charles Dickens makes the town come to life by describing multiple aspects of its inhabitants’ work and their...
Hard Times
What is the significance of the three books in Hard Times?
Novels were usually released in three volumes in this time period. In Hard Times, the first volume or book is called "Sowing," the second "Reaping," and the third "Garnering." The section titles...
Hard Times
Why are three main sections of the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens entitled "Sowing," "Reaping," and "Garnering"?
Sowing means planting crops (seeds), reaping is harvesting the full-grown crops, and garnering is picking up the pieces that are left over after the harvest. Sowing and reaping are intimately...
Hard Times
Based on historic and literary evidence, how did the nineteenth century view the world and our place in it?
One notable characteristic of the nineteenth century is that it was not dominated by a single worldview. Throughout the century, a large number of changes occurring at a rapid pace permanently...
Hard Times
What is the conclusion of the novel Hard Times?
Hard Times is a favorite Charles Dickens book. It's also one of his shortest and least acclaimed. Those with an unfavorable opinion often say that Dickens's concern with making a statement about...
Hard Times
In Hard Times, what is the significance of the book structure?
Hard Times is divided into three books, entitled respectively "The Sowing," "The Reaping," and "The Garnering." These titles correspond to three stages in a child's upbringing and education. The...
Hard Times
What is the moral of story Hard Times?
The moral of Hard Times is that a life built completely on the basis of facts and statistics is limited and unhappy. Gradgrind raises his children, Tom and Louisa, to value only money and to live...
Hard Times
Compare and contrast the characters of Louisa Gradgrind and Sissy Jupe in Hard Times.
Sissy Jupe and Louisa Gradgrind are in many was opposites in this novel, but they do share some commonalities. Sissy, the daughter of a circus clown, represents the world of imagination and magic...
Hard Times
What does "M'Choakumchild" mean?
M’Choakumchild is the name of a schoolteacher assigned to instruct Sissy Jupe in the fact-based education that Gradgrind supports. His name sounds like his role as a teacher: he is Mr....
Hard Times
Charles Dickens’s Hard Times is a novel divided into three books. These books are titled “Sowing,” “Reaping,” and...
Hard Times is a novel written by famed English writer and social critic Charles Dickens. It was first published in 1854, in Dickens’s weekly periodical magazine Household Words, in the form of a...
Hard Times
What is the significance of the title, Hard Times?
I am not really sure that there is any other way to describe the story of the Gradgrind family other than to say that it consisted of plenty of "Hard Times." The mere educational philosophy of...
Hard Times
Discuss the role of Sissy Jupe in Hard Times.
Sissy Jupe brings a ray of light and life into the serious and rationalistic world of the Gradgrinds and Coketown. The daughter of circus worker, she represents poetry, imagination, and pleasure....
Hard Times
What is the main conflict in Hard Times?
The novel's main conflict has to do with Louisa's disastrous marriage to Mr. Bounderby and Tom's theft from Bounderby's bank. But the underlying conflict in Hard Times is the opposition of emotion...
Hard Times
What is the definition of "horse" in Hard Times?
Thomas Gradgrind wants nothing but facts: "NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts." When he asks Girl #20 to tell the class what a horse is, she cannot come up...
Hard Times
Why is Sissy referred to as "girl number twenty?"
Gradgrind calls himself a "man of facts and calculations." He wants his pupils to know nothing but the facts. He calls Sissy Jupe girl number twenty, because he believes education is primarily a...
Hard Times
How does Hard Times represent a critique of materialism?
In Hard Times, Charles Dickens presents a generally negative view of materialism as a driving force in the rapidly industrializing Victorian society. Dickens is especially hard on factory owners,...
Hard Times
How do the names of the characters in Hard Times reflect their roles/personalities? For example did Dickens use the...
Charles Dickens, like William Shakespeare, used character names to conjure up certain perceptions of the characters in the reader's (or audience member's ) mind. In the case of Hard Times, some of...
Hard Times
How did you feel about Mr. Gradgrind's theory of education?
Dickens' creation of Gradgrind's teaching style seems to be a direct indictment of capitalism and a world where acquisition is the sole driving force. Gradgrind's mantra of "facts, not fancy" and...
Hard Times
What do you consider the major moral lesson in Hard Times by Charles Dickens?
The main moral lesson in Hard Times is that industrialization, if unchecked, can turn human beings into machines, into cogs in a vast system of production. Such a process involves the deliberate...
Hard Times
What is the relationship between Louisa and Tom in Hard Times?
In Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are sister and brother. The two siblings have very different responses to their difficult upbringing at the hands of Thomas Gradgrind...
Hard Times
How is symbolism used in Hard Times?
In Hard Times, the circus symbolizes learning through experience. It's here that Sissy Jupe learns what a horse is, for example, without needing to give the kind of precise, lexicographical...
Hard Times
Who is Mr. Sleary in Hard Times?
In Charles Dickens's Hard Times, Mr. Sleary is a circus owner whose philosophy of life stands in sharp contrast with some of the novel's other characters (especially Thomas Gradgrind, Josiah...
Hard Times
What does Sissy Jupe symbolize?
Sissy Jupe represents all the magic, compassion, and creativity that has been sucked out of life by Gradgrind's fact-focused utilitarian philosophy. She is the abandoned daughter of a circus...
Hard Times
Is Hard Times a realist novel?
Realism in literature is identified by literary critics as a method of presenting human experiences as they actually occur. In the nineteenth century, it arose as a style that purported to be the...
Hard Times
Is "Hard Times" a satire of industrial society?
Yes, the novel is a satire of industrial society. More importantly, perhaps, it is a satire of the values on which industrial society is based. The sort of values which Dickens is satirizing is...
Hard Times
In what ways is Hard Times a novel of social protest?
Hard Times protests the ill effects of industrialism, which was beginning to dominate life in England by the Victorian era. Much like many real mill towns in the mid-nineteenth century, Coketown...
Hard Times
Consider Hard Times as a social satire.
This excellent Dickensian classic promotes the fear that the author had of the impact of embracing industrialisation in society and how this would, in turn, inhibit humanity and turn them into...
Hard Times
Discuss the father and daughter relationships in Hard Times.
Clearly the two relationships that this question refers to are the relationship between Louisa Gradgrind and her father, Mr. Gradgrind, and then the relationship between Sissy Jupe and her father,...
Hard Times
What does Mr. Gradgrind say is the most important philosophy?
In the opening of Charles Dickens's Hard Times, the philosophy of Gradgrind's model academy is spelled out in great detail: Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but...
Hard Times
What is the significance of the title Hard Times?
Hard Times refers both to the difficulties of the factory workers in the age of industrialism and to the utilitarian philosophy that encouraged people's hearts to harden and imaginations to...
Hard Times
How has the river in Charles Dickens' "Hard Times" been polluted?
In Charles Dickens' "Hard Times," Coketown is portrayed as a sort of industrial nightmare area. The book is written in the context of an England where a new, industrialized society is taking the...
Hard Times
Who robs the bank in Hard Times?
When his bank is robbed, Bounderby does not in the least suspect Tom Gradgrind at first, although Tom is the thief. Tom has spent time planning the robbery so as to divert attention from himself....
Hard Times
How does Stephen die in Hard Times?
Sissy and Rachel discover evidence that Stephen Blackpool, who has been missing for some time, fell down the Old Hell mine shaft. They find his hat, with his name written in it, and then Rachel...
Hard Times
Who is Bitzer in Hard Times?
The timeline of Bitzer's character begins in chapter 2 of Hard Times, which is titled "Murdering the Innocents." He is a young boy going to school at Gradgrind's academy. From the very start,...
Hard Times
Describe Grandgrind's model school in the novel Hard Times.
Gradgrind's model school in Dickens' work is a result of the utilitarian model motivated by the Enlightenment gone sadly awry. We can see this in the opening chapters. The direct method of...
Hard Times
"Hard Times is a passionate attack on contemporary Victorian society." Justify your statement with references to the...
Charles Dickens's Hard Times can certainly be interpreted as an attack on Victorian society during the initial waves of industrialization in England. Victorian-era ideals were strongly rooted in...
Hard Times
Who is the narrator in Hard Times?
Like a good Victorian novelist would, Dickens uses a highly knowledgeable third-person narrator who looks down from "above" and can speak with authority about what is going on in the novel. There...
Hard Times
How does Charles Dickens make the character of Sissy Jupe a significant one in Hard Times?
Sissy, the nickname of Cecilia, Jupe is a child during much of the action in Hard Times. In many ways, Sissy embodies the novel’s title—the difficulties that England’s poor must endure. Charles...
Hard Times
What did Mr. Gradgrind do wrong when raising his children in Hard Times?
The fact-based upbringing provided by Mr. Gradgrind resulted in Louisa and Tom becoming emotionally stunted and detached. The complete lack of any kind of encouragement to help them imagine and...
Hard Times
How does the Victorian era tie in to the setting of Hard Times?
The Victorian era is reflected in the economic situation of the factory workers in Coketown. They work very hard for very low pay and have no benefits or job security. Many feel they have no...
Hard Times
Critically analyze the theme of class conflict as presented in Hard Times.
Lord Macaulay objected to what he called the "sullen Socialism" in Hard Times and, although the book is not ideologically Socialist, it is easy to see what he means. More than any other Dickens...
Hard Times
In Hard Times by Charles Dickens, what does James Harthouse symbolize?
Every single character in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times represents a trope or facet of Victorian society. Mr. James Harthouse is no exception. He represents the archetypal “rake,” or a wealthy,...
Hard Times
What is important in the writing style used in Hard Times by Charles Dickens?
I think that one of the most significant element about the writing style that Dickens employs is to bring out an almost philosophical treatise to the literary narrative being depicted. Dickens...
Hard Times
What is the tone of the first chapter of Hard Times?
Tone is a writer's attitude toward the subject at hand. In the very short first chapter of Hard Times, the tone is bitterly ironic. The first chapter focuses on the teacher's expression of the...
Hard Times
What attitude does the description of the children as "little pitchers" reflect?
Charles Dickens’ use of the term “little pitchers” to describe the students at Mr. Thomas Gradgrind’s school reflects the educational values of Utilitarians during the Victorian era. Dickens...
Hard Times
How old is Mr. Bounderby?
Mr. Bounderby's age is alluded to in Chapter 4 of the novel. Dickens writes that Mr. Bounderby "looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have had the seven or eight added to it again,...
Hard Times
How is education presented in Hard Times?
Education in Hard Times is often presented as little more than rote learning and the transmission of facts. In the notorious figure of Mr. Gradgrind, we have the epitome of Victorian utilitarianism...
Hard Times
"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts." What kind of education do children receive...
At the experimental private school run by Thomas Gradgrind in Coketown, the children learn facts and only facts. To Gradgrind, there is no purpose for fun, fancy, or imagination in this world. He...
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