HARD TIMES

        EDUCATION IN HARD TIMES

                                 There is a strong case made in Hard Times that education is not simply the classroom experience of memorizing facts. The novel expresses the view that having an emotional component to our education is crucial. It's also shown in the novel that this kind of learning can happen at any time in life. 

                             Learning about the way other people live is the groundwork for valuing them as fellow creatures; learning about them only in terms of their productivity is a recipe for class warfare. If this proper groundwork is not laid, then a perverted kind of learning can take its place, full of cynicism and misanthropy.

                             In the novel, learning is not a lifelong process. Whatever you don't master at a young age can never be taught in adulthood.

                               Sissy's quippy, Biblical retorts to the teachings of Mr. Gradgrind and the M'Choakumchilds sound good in the novel, but if followed on a grand scale would create anarchy, chaos, and national disaster.

      EDUCATION IN TODAY'S CONTEXT

“KNOWLEDGE IS THE FOOD FOR MAN BECAUSE IN ABSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE MAN CANNOT GROW HIS FOOD.”

                         Education is an important aspect that plays a huge role in the modern, industrialized world. People need a good education to be able to survive in this competitive world. Modern society is based on people who have high living standards and knowledge which allows them to implement better solutions to their problems.

                         The first thing that strikes in our minds when we think about education is gaining knowledge. Education is a tool which provides people with knowledge, skill, technique, information, enables them to know their rights and duties toward their family, society as well as the nation. It expands vision and outlook to see the world. It develops the capabilities to fight against injustice, violence, corruption and many other bad elements in the society.

                                    Education gives us knowledge of the world around us. It develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It is the most important element in the evolution of the nation. Without education, one will not explore new ideas. It means one will not able to develop the world because without ideas there is no creativity and without creativity, there is no development of the nation.

            MARRIAGE IN HARD TIMES

                             There are many unhappy marriages in Hard Times and none of them are resolved happily by the end. Mr.Gradgrind's marriage to his feeble, complaining wife is not exactly a source of misery for either of them, but neither are they or their children happy. The Gradgrind family is not a loving or affectionate one. The main unhappy marriage showcased by the novel is between Louisa Gradgrind and Mr.Bounderby.

                                 Louisa marries him not out of love but out of a sense of duty to her brother, Tom, the only person in the world she loves and who wheedles her into saying "yes" because he works for Bounderby and wants to improve his chances at rising in the world. Bounderby's intentions regarding Louisa seem a bit creepy at first, but he turns out to mean no harm to her (except that he deprives her of any marital affection). 

                                The only solution to this bad marriage, once Louisa has escaped the hands of Jem Harthouse, is for Louisa to live at home the rest of her days. She will never be happy with another man or have the joy of children, though Dickens hints she will find joy in playing with Sissy's future children.

                                Stephen Blackpool, too, is damned to unhappiness in this life as a result of his marriage. The girl who seemed so sweet when he married her many years ago becomes, by a gradual process, a depraved drunk who is the misery of his life. She periodically returns to Coketown to haunt Stephen and is, as he sees it, the sole barrier to the happiness he might have had in marrying Rachael. Mrs.Sparsit (an elderly lady who lives with Mr. Bounderby for some time) was also unhappily married, which is how she came to be Mr. Bounderby's companion before he marries Louisa.

                               There are many unequal and unhappy marriages in Hard Times, including those of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind, Stephen Blackpool and his unnamed drunken wife, and most pertinently, the Bounderbys. Louisa agrees to marry Mr. Bounderby because her father convinces her that doing so would be a rational decision. He even cites statistics to show that the great difference in their ages need not prevent their mutual happiness. 

                                       However, Louisa’s consequent misery as Bounderby’s wife suggests that love, rather than either reason or convenience, must be the foundation of a happy marriage.

        MARRIAGE IN TODAY'S CONTEXT

                                     Anyone who’s been married for more than a few months can tell you it’s tough. And it seems to have gotten tougher, considering how divorce rates have climbed over the last few decades.

                               The evidence suggests that marriage has indeed gotten harder, and we posit that there are a number of reasons why. One has to do with the adoption of no-fault laws in the late 1960s, which, in a nutshell, established that breaking up a marriage is acceptable and the reasons for doing so are nobody’s business. In effect, these laws gave individuals greater freedom to choose our own paths; they also helped to remove divorce’s negative stigma, allowing couples to retain their good standing in the community.

                           Then there’s the movement toward gender equality. With more and better employment opportunities, women have more control over their lives and no longer need a husband for financial security. They can wait longer to get married and don’t have to stay married if they’re not satisfied. Some people may not work as hard to fix a marriage because they're better equipped to make it on their own.

         INDUSTRIALISM IN "HARD TIMES"

                                Hand in hand with the glorification of data and numbers and facts in the schoolhouse is the treatment of the workers in the factories of Coketown as nothing more than machines, which produce so much per day and are not thought of as having feelings or families or dreams.

                                    Dickens depicts this situation as a result of the industrialization of England; now that towns like Coketown are focused on producing more and more, more dirty factories are built, more smoke pollutes the air and water, and the factory owners only see their workers as part of the machines that bring them profit. In fact, the workers are only called "Hands", an indication of how objectified they are by the owners. Similarly, Mr.Gradgrind's children were brought up to be "minds". None of them are people or "hearts".

                               As the book progresses, it portrays how industrialism creates conditions in which owners treat workers as machines and workers respond by unionizing to resist and fight back against the owners. In the meantime, those in Parliament (like Mr. Gradgrind, who winds up elected to office) work for the benefit of the country but not its people. 

                              In short, industrialization creates an environment in which people cease to treat either others or themselves as people. Even the unions, the groups of factory workers who fight against the injustices of the factory owners, are not shown in a good light. Stephen Blackpool, a poor worker at Bounderby's factory, is rejected by his fellow workers for his refusal to join the union because of a promise made to the sweet, good woman he loves, Rachael.His factory union then treats him as an outcast.

                                          The remedy to industrialism and its evils in the novel is found in Sissy Jupe, the little girl who was brought up among circus performers and fairy tales. Letting loose the imagination of children lets loose their hearts as well, and, as Sissy does, they can combat and undo what a Gradgrind education produces.

                                   In Hard Times Dickens sharply criticizes the poor living conditions of the working class in industrial towns. He depicts life in a fictive industrial town Coketown as a symbol for a typical industrial town in Northern England of that time. It is a place full of exploitation, desperation and oppression. Soot and ash is all over the town; it is a dirty and suffocating place.

 

                                  The workers have low wages and work long hours. The work begins before sunrise, the production is important and there is no regard for the rights and suffering of the low class. Children in school are taught according to Utilitarianism philosophy – they should accept and live according to facts and facts alone, they are not allowed to fantasize or think for themselves.

                                  In Coketown, machines cause great pollution. The industrial workers have no chance of progress in life. The upper-middle class ignores their misery (Bounderby) and denies imagination and creativity (Gradgrind). Utilitarianism exerts mechanization of society and human mind. The character of Sissy Jupe represents the personification of fact vs. fancy conflict, she tries hard to learn facts, but is unable to, she freely thinks and imagines. 

                                 She is the most stable character because she succeeds to find a balance between the two. Dickens points out the flaws and limitation of the newly created industrial society and the necessity of social reform.

    INDUSTRIALISM IN TODAY'S CONTEXT

                              The Industrial Revolution, which brought together large-scale coal-based industries like mining, steel, pottery, and textiles, helped create the foundation of modern society and wealth. 

                                    At the same time, the early industrial economies that formed in this era were also associated with brutal working and living conditions. Our research, recently accepted by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that areas where coal was king may still be feeling the effects.

                                 In countries like the UK and the U.S. that industrialized early, coal now plays only a minor role in the economy. For example, in the U.S. today, the entire coal industry employs about 53000 people,  with only about 11,000 of those working in extraction. Coal production and consumption have also declined markedly.

                                  Yet prior research has found that in the areas of the U.S. and UK where coal still is a major industry, it affects local populations in a profound way. For example, people who live in areas with active coal mining today often experience greater risk of mental and physical health issues, such as depression, anxiety, COPD, and asthma, than people in other regions. 

                                    Research also shows that besides the occupational health risks that miners face, these regions pose increased population-wide health risks due to pollution and economic hardship.

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