The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Dear Fellow Curiosities,

I don’t know how you feel about our experiment of mirroring the weekly readings portions in our own pace of perusing the novel but I think there were two sides to it: On the one hand, it was an interesting experience to notice what it was like for contemporary readers to have to wait a whole week before being led on to the next dramatic event they were entitled to expect after the sometimes cliffhangerish endings of the respective final chapters. On the other hand, I could not really start feeling at home with the novel yet because as soon as I had read myself into Coketown affairs, the two chapters were finished and I had to wait for another week. Therefore, I am quite glad that from now on, there will be more weekly Dickens again, and Part II of the novel, which is called “Reaping”, seems to pick up pace with the advent of a new, probably fiendish, character.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Effects in the Bank”, and in its course we learn that one year has passed since Louisa’s marriage. It is a sunny midsummer day, which is not too enjoyable in Coketown because even from afar “Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of its own, which appeared to be impervious to the sun’s rays.” This is clearly also metaphorical, and the narrator once again starts voicing social criticism, which seems all too modern:

”Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke.”

The narrator’s criticism also encompasses environmental issues, e.g. when he describes the insalubrious effects of a sunny day with regard to living conditions in Coketown, where everything then smells of machinery oil. We also get very graphic pictures of environmental pollution such as:

”Down upon the river that was black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who were at large—a rare sight there—rowed a crazy boat, which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every dip of an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the things it looks upon to bless.”

The narrator then shifts his attention to Mr. Bounderby’s bank, which is guarded, Cerberus-like, by Mrs. Sparsit, who has all these months never stopped to endow Mr. Bounderby, whenever she saw him, with that unwanted pitiful glance. Finally, in the description of Mrs. Sparsit’s adorning the bank with her presence, the narrator allows himself some humour, albeit of a very cutting sort, which I personally like best:

”Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening-tide among the desks and writing implements, she shed a feminine, not to say also aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, with her needlework or netting apparatus, at the window, she had a self-laudatory sense of correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude business aspect of the place. With this impression of her interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit considered herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The townspeople who, in their passing and repassing, saw her there, regarded her as the Bank Dragon keeping watch over the treasures of the mine.”

Equally funny is the following detail in the description of the bank:

”[…] that respectable tradition never to be separated from a place of business claiming to be wealthy—a row of fire-buckets—vessels calculated to be of no physical utility on any occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral influence, almost equal to bullion, on most beholders.“

Is that, maybe, a slight allusion to the question whether what people in general deem reliable is really as reliable as they think? Does this refer to life in general, or to certain institutions, like marriages and banks? We don’t know as yet.

Mrs. Sparsit is enjoying her evening meal in her usual self-forbearing manner, or show of self-forbearance, while she is listening to the denunciatory talk of the light porter, who is an old acquaintance of ours – namely Bitzer, the boy who defined horses and stalked Sissy. Bitzer first talks about the problems Coketown is having with trade unionism, which leads Mrs. Sparsit to most decided, yet also most paradoxical statements as the following:

”’It is much to be regretted […] that the united masters allow of any such class-combinations. […] Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces against employing any man who is united with any other man’”

Clearly, the narrator expects his readers to realize the double moral standards with which someone like Mrs. Sparsit looks at the case – and yet, we will get an impression at what the narrator – or even Dickens himself? – thinks of trade unions later on.

Bitzer – who, coming from Mr. Gradgrind’s school, has grown a very calculating and passionless youth, serving as an informer – also informs Mrs. Sparsit of young Tom Gradgrind’s extravagant and careless ways, which are, for the time being, unknown to Mr. Bounderby. Mrs. Sparsit receives this information with a tickled sense of endorsement of her own opinion on Mr. Bounderby’s union with Louisa, although she strictly forbids Bitzer to mention any concrete names to her. Bitzer points out his own resourcefulness, his zeal and frugality in contrast to Thomas, and says that since he himself has moved from poor origins to his position, everyone else should also be able to improve their own lives. Now, this reminded me in a little way of old Bounderby’s constant bragging of rising from rags to riches, and the narrator quickly adds:

”This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why don’t you go and do it?”

Mrs. Sparsit all the while, nods her head in agreement, eating muffin – as the narrator points out. The conversation between her and Bitzer is now brought to an end, though, because Bitzer has spotted a visitor and thinks it advisable that Mrs. Sparsit receive this man. When this eminent woman meets the strange gentleman, the narrator interposes:

”For it was to be seen with half an eye that he was a thorough gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of everything, and putting no more faith in anything than Lucifer.”

Mrs. Sparsit, however, puts him down as 35, good-looking and well-dressed, and this suffices for her. In the course of their conversation, in which the gentleman leaves a lot of room for Mrs. Sparsit to talk about herself, it becomes clear that the stranger wants to show a letter of recommendation to Mr. Bounderby and that this letter was written by Mr. Gradgrind. The gentleman is especially interested in Mrs. Bounderby, in her age and in her manner, and he asks rather worrying questions like:

”’[…]Is she absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and stunningly clever? I see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You have poured balm into my anxious soul. […]’”

Unapproachable? What a strange thing to enquire about. Why is he so interested in Louisa in the first place? And what is his business with Mr. Bounderby? We’ll have to wait until the next chapter, though, to have some of our questions answered. This chapter closes with the gentleman taking his leave, and Mrs. Sparsit, in the privacy of her room, after a long, long reverie, exclaiming the words “O, you Fool!”

I wonder whom they refer to. Herself? Not very likely, or maybe she realizes that she has talked too much about certain people to this young man. To the young man? She might think him anything but a fool. To Mr. Bounderby? To Mr. Gradgrind?

In Chapter 2, we are given, even in the chapter title, the name of the mysterious stranger: He is called “Mr. James Harthouse”, and the narrator presents him as the younger brother of a callous man who has worked for Mr. Gradgrind and his party. The elder brother told his younger sibling that there might be an opening in life in associating with the Gradgrind party, and accordingly, James Harthouse takes up the Gradgrind course. We learn of Mr. Harthouse that he is a good-looking man

”who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere.”

In other words, he is not exactly a man of principle – with the possible exception of the principle of looking after his own interests first. After making himself familiar with some of Mr. Gradgrind’s notorious “blue books”, Harthouse gained Mr. Gradgrind’s confidence and is now sent to Coketown so that he may get known in the vicinity – probably with a view to becoming an MP? Mr. Harthouse’s name is certainly interesting, in that it seems to offer at least three associations, namely “a hard house”, “heart-house” and, more on the sensual level, “hart-house”. Maybe this can tell us something about the role he is going to play.

At present, he seems, above all like a good observer. He enjoys Bounderby’s hospitality and cunningly agrees with him on everything he says about the workers and the clash of interest between them and their masters, but he also takes a good observing look at Louisa:

”She was so constrained, and yet so careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart humility—from which she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than in manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play was so locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone—it was of no use ‘going in’ yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration.”

This looks a lot like somebody trying to find out how the land is lying. Mr. Bounderby had better watch out! Still, he brags about her, or rather himself, when he points out:

”’[…] You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my junior. I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have married me. She has lots of expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. […]’”

Mr. Bounderby had better remember his talks with Mr. Gradgrind, and he would know why Louisa married him. He might also think about young Tom’s position in his house, and he would still know better why Louisa married him. The expression “expensive knowledge” marks him down as a utilitarian dunce, instead.

Mr. Harthouse successfully charms Louisa by what the narrator condemns as the “vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty – a vice so dangerous, so deadly, and so common”, and he also quickly perceives that Tom, whom he refers to, in his mind, as the young whelp, seems to be one key to understanding Louisa. Accordingly, he makes sure that Tom will accompany him home when his visit at the Bounderbys’ draws to a close.

The third chapter, „The Whelp“, seems to be of crucial importance to the plot development since the narrator finishes it with rather ominous words, with which I am going to finish this summary – so you still have to wait a bit for them.

At the beginning of the chapter, the narrator points out to Tom’s education according to Facts, Facts, Facts as an explanation of his inclination to hypocrisy, his lack of discipline and his waywardness and obsession with easy pleasures. And yet, the narrator remains very hard on Tom, which already becomes clear by his taking over the epithet of “The whelp” from Mr. Harthouse whenever he refers to young Tom. Frankly speaking, I can understand the narrator because Tom is definitely disgusting and despicable, a full-blown cad if ever there was one.

Arriving at Mr. Harthouse’s place, this scheming gentleman flatters Tom’s vanity by assuming a tone of easy familiarity and by offering him cigars and spirits, and by and by the older man manages to establish a kind of influence over the younger:

”James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and attitude, smoking his cigar in his own easy way, and looking pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only to hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul if required. It certainly did seem that the whelp yielded to this influence.”

So, by and by, Tom lets out the secret behind the Bounderby marriage, namely that Louisa does not care at all for Bounderby and only married him because her father expected her to do so but also, this reason weighing heavier with her, because she could do her brother a service with that union. The following extract from their conversation shows how cleverly Harthouse draws out all the information he wants from Tom – a bit like the Heeps corkscrewed David – and also what kind of ungrateful and wretched creature Tom is. Let Dickens’s masterful dialogue speak for itself:

”‘You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, ‘and therefore, you needn’t be surprised that Loo married old Bounderby. She never had a lover, and the governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.’
‘Very dutiful in your interesting sister,’ said Mr. James Harthouse.
‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as dutiful, and it would not have come off as easily,’ returned the whelp, ‘if it hadn’t been for me.’
The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows; but the whelp was obliged to go on.
‘I persuaded her,’ he said, with an edifying air of superiority. ‘I was stuck into old Bounderby’s bank (where I never wanted to be), and I knew I should get into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby’s pipe out; so I told her my wishes, and she came into them. She would do anything for me. It was very game of her, wasn’t it?’
‘It was charming, Tom!’
‘Not that it was altogether so important to her as it was to me,’ continued Tom coolly, ‘because my liberty and comfort, and perhaps my getting on, depended on it; and she had no other lover, and staying at home was like staying in jail—especially when I was gone. It wasn’t as if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; but still it was a good thing in her.’
‘Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so placidly.’
‘Oh,’ returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, ‘she’s a regular girl. A girl can get on anywhere. She has settled down to the life, and she don’t mind. It does just as well as another. Besides, though Loo is a girl, she’s not a common sort of girl. She can shut herself up within herself, and think—as I have often known her sit and watch the fire—for an hour at a stretch.’”

As soon as Mr. Harthouse has learnt enough from Tom, the whelp mysteriously gives in to the influence of drink and tobacco, and he is – rather roughly, as it seems to him – got rid of. And now the narrator says the following ominous words:

”The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of what he had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and more of a brother, he might have turned short on the road, might have gone down to the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained his head for ever with its filthy waters.”

Chapter 4 is dealing with „Men and Brothers“, and it can be summarized rather quickly because it just tells you how Stephen Blackpool is ostracized for not following suit with the policies of the United Aggregate Tribunal, a trade union. Apparently, Stephen is the only worker in the mill not to be organized in the union, and when the workers allow him to defend himself, he says that he also has personal reasons that would hinder him from becoming a member even if he wanted to. Stephen, the poor martyr that he is, says he is ready to accept being shunned by his fellow workers for this decision but he also entreats them to let him go on in his job in the mill because he has to earn his living somehow.

Obviously, we are supposed to feel pity with Stephen since the narrator says:

”Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd.”

Making Stephen an outcast even among his fellow-workers, many of whom, as the text points out, do bear him no personal grudge, obfuscates the social message of the novel a bit, as I think, in that we come to pity Stephen as a martyr, whose life is a chain of humiliations, deprivations and failures, and we no longer see him as a working man. This tendency is reinforced by Dickens’s portrayal of the trade union official Slackbridge, who tries to rouse the workers’ anger against Stephen:

”As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink of water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd of attentive faces turned towards him, was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by Nature’s evidence, he was above the mass in very little but the stage on which he stood. In many great respects he was essentially below them. He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe solid sense. An ill-made, high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he contrasted most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of his hearers in their plain working clothes.”

We also learn that he has “froth and fume” in him and that he wipes his forehead exclusively from left to right and never the other way round – what is that supposed to mean, I wonder? The narrator also states in so many words that the organized workers were wrong in their beliefs. All in all, in this chapter the narrator – and Dickens – leave no doubt that while mill-owners exploited workers unduly, it was still wrong in them to organize themselves in unions and start collective action. Instead ,they were probably supposed to cut a pathetic figure like Stephen Blackpool and wait for the government to see to it that work regulations might eventually better their lot. Meanwhile they were to bear their lot in patience, apparently, and not to contaminate their innate decency by listening to tempters such as Slackbridge.

Chapter 5 leads us from men and brothers on to „Men and Masters“, which does not portend any good. Stephen has been suffering for a while, also because he does not want to consort with Rachael for fear of bringing the ostracism on her head, too, when he is asked to betake himself to Mr. Bounderby, who wants to talk to him.

Stephen finds Mr. Bounderby in the company of his wife, of the whelp and of Mr. Harthouse, and without much ado his employer asks him to tell them what he knows about the trade unions. This, Stephen declines to do, making Bounderby’s hackles go up immediately. All Stephen is ready to admit is that he has made a promise to somebody unknown not to join the union, and Mr. Bounderby grows even angrier at that because he would have expected Stephen to refrain from joining the union not due to a promise to somebody else, but due to regard for him, Mr. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, and Stephen plainly says that this was not a hindrance for him to joi. He also claims that workers are ill-treated and are not well-remunerated – while he is having his say, he is looking at Louisa mainly, and not at anyone else –, and all this makes Mr. Bounderby so mad that he finally gives Stephen the sack, saying that he was just an ill-tempered, trouble-making fellow. When Stephen gets this news of his being sacked, Louisa’s eyes are not resting on him any more.

While Stephen leaves the stage with a hang-dog expression, let me make two observations – one is that the promise he mentions begs a triple question: First, who made Stephen give this promise; second, why should they want to keep Stephen from joining the union; third, why should Stephen give that promise if he claims in Mr. Bounderby’s presence that the workers are really treated badly by their employers?

My second observation is that the last two chapters gave me an answer to the question why Stephen would not just go somewhere else, and it’s so obvious I wonder that I didn’t find it sooner: No one outside Coketown would understand Stephen’s intricate dialect.

Whew. I give you props, Tristram, for being the one who had to tackle this segment. These chapters were quite a slog for me, and made me long for the days of Bleak House. You certainly had more patience than I did to get to the bones of the story through Stephen's unintelligible speech and what was, for me, somewhat cryptic narration. Maybe it's because Hard Times has been my bedtime reading, so I'm not as focused as I might be. I got the gist of things in the end, but didn't enjoy it one whit.

I took Harthouse's name as a good sign (heart house), but that doesn't mesh well with his actions or the description of his aimless past (which puts me in mind of Richard Carstone). There's a plot afoot, but I don't know what it entails yet, except that I fear it will bring Louisa even more trouble. The way she was described when Harthouse met her made me think this poor girl has an incredibly hard shell, but Harthouse may just crack through it until her hidden sensitivities come to the fore in spectacular and devastating fashion. We'll see. I'm intrigued to know what Tom disclosed in his intoxicated state that he'll later regret to the extreme that he'll wish he'd killed himself instead. That's some heavy-handed foreshadowing! I don't remember anything mentioned that we, as readers, didn't already easily surmise. Will Harthouse be another Steerforth? Holy moly - a mixture of Steerforth and Carstone. That's an explosive combination. Let's hope Harthouse doesn't also have Bradley Headstone in his personality!

I have no use for contemporary labor unions, but I understand their historic importance. Why Stephen would knowingly ostracize himself is a mystery, particularly when he willingly admits to being supportive of the union's aims. Did anyone else take notice of Slackbridge's introduction of Stephen?

You all know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him awlung o’ his misfort’ns, and his good name.’

Apparently I called it wrong last week when I speculated that Stephen didn't go around telling everyone about his hard life. He must be quite an Eeyore to be introduced this way. (Someone please tell me what "awlung" is meant to be. Slackbridge is almost as bad as Stephen.)

I hope next week's installment will have more dialogue among the story's more articulate characters to keep me motivated. Back to Sissy!

If I try to pronounce it, I think a distorted form of 'ailing' might be it? Like, 'you know he's ailing of his misfortunes, and his good name'. I guess. At some other point when Stephen is talking to Blackpool it reminds me of the Saxon word 'altoos' my gran on dad's side always used, which means 'always'. Which would be in line with Stephen always having thorns and misfortunes, but it does not wholly fit in the sentence.

I would have thought that "awlung o' his misfort'ns" simply means "along of (= because of) his misfortunes".

In any case, the dialect is just awful, but not awful as in "ripping" or "splendid". I am coming more and more to the conclusion that the title Hard Times was chosen with the anticipated feeling a reader was having when going through the dialogue of Stephen and his fellow-workers.

Thanks a lot for your praise of my forbearance, Mary Lou, but actually, I was quite enjoying the first three chapters of this week's bunch because I saw an interesting conflict build up. Harthouse is a very thoughtless and cynical man, who even tries to make a virtue of his cynicism, and so I think that there is little good to be expected of him and his arrival on the scene. He has clearly taken an unwholesome interest in Louisa, and since he is always bored, he might indulge in the pastime of trying to make Louisa his lover.

I think that Tom did his sister a very bad service in that he confirmed Harthouse's suspicions as to the dysfunctional nature of the Bounderby marriage. Tom's words further made it clear to Harthouse that Louisa can expect little help from her brother, who has gladly accepted his sister's self-sacrifice for his own ends. The tempter - as the narrator calls Harthouse - also knows that Louisa's father is safely engaged in London and that therefore, there is no one to help Louisa in case H. would start luring her into his net.

Tristram wrote: "I think that Tom did his sister a very bad service in that he confirmed Harthouse's suspicions as to the dysfunctional nature of the Bounderby marriage. Tom's words further made it clear to Harthouse that Louisa can expect little help from her brother, who has gladly accepted his sister's self-sacrifice for his own ends."

I know Tom is horrible, but I found very interesting his logic that it's ok for him to put Louisa into this position because she has nothing to lose by it because she's a girl with no lover to give up.

On the one hand this is obviously sexist, but it strikes me as sexist in an ignorant way: Tom actually thinks Louisa can't be harmed emotionally in the same way he can because she's a girl. It doesn't occur to him that she has any feelings of her own except the possible feeling of being in love with someone--and since she's in love with no one, by Tom's logic, that's just not a problem.

While it's still very self-involved and self-interested of him not to take the time to ask or notice whether maybe Louisa *can* be hurt by marrying Bounderby--he doesn't know. And his training has equipped him not to know.

I guess I almost feel a little tiny bit of sympathy for him.

Almost.

Tristram wrote: "Instead ,they were probably supposed to cut a pathetic figure like Stephen Blackpool and wait for the government to see to it that work regulations might eventually better their lot.."

I don't think it's government Dickens wants Stephen to wait for--I think it's medieval patronage, i.e. Bounderby, to take a more caring paternal role. Good luck with that.

Mainly I think this because I don't see government offered as a solution, while Bounderby is, if a failed solution--unless we can count Gradgrind and his committees? I guess there's a hint of government in the suggestion that the mill owners shouldn't complain so much about being ruined "when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery"--presumably these are government inspectors.

So maybe I'm wrong and this book is pushing for things like government safety recommendations. Though Gradgrind, our committee guy, seems more interested in education than industrial safety.

Julie wrote: "Tristram wrote: "I think that Tom did his sister a very bad service in that he confirmed Harthouse's suspicions as to the dysfunctional nature of the Bounderby marriage. Tom's words further made it..."

Hi Julie

I’m struggling with many of the characters in the novel. I can’t grasp my own feelings for Tom, Louisa, and especially Mrs Sparsit.

I wonder if the weekly format of publication has obliged Dickens to force/rush the characters too much.

Julie wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Instead ,they were probably supposed to cut a pathetic figure like Stephen Blackpool and wait for the government to see to it that work regulations might eventually better their lo..."

Hi Julie

I think Dickens knows the old world of aristocratic patronage and care for the lower classes has gone forever. How scary to think of Bounderby as a new-age aristocrat.

I wonder why Dickens didn’t give us a more detailed look at how the “blue books” of Gradgrind failed the working population. Again, I feel it is the nature of the weekly publication that is handcuffing Dickens. What a literary whiplash to go from writing the intricate Bleak House to the skeletal Hard Times.

Peter wrote: "What a literary whiplash to go from writing the intricate Bleak House to the skeletal Hard Times...."

Yes, literary whiplash. Good characterization.

Julie wrote: "And his training has equipped him not to know...."

This is what I was thinking as I read your comment, Julie. I wonder if Tom believes his own emotions are an anomaly, not shared by his sister and others. Though surely, despite what he's been taught, he's witnessed whimsy, creativity, and emotion in the world around him?

At any rate, I don't know that our 21st century view of misogyny is quite what Dickens was going for here. We haven't seen Tom interact with any other women to get a more complete picture. Again, the drawbacks of this "skeletal" format.

Mary Lou wrote: "Julie wrote: "And his training has equipped him not to know...."

This is what I was thinking as I read your comment, Julie. I wonder if Tom believes his own emotions are an anomaly, not shared by ..."

That's a good point. I wonder if Tom can even recognize emotions in himself, let alone his sister. He is concerned about "my liberty and comfort, and perhaps my getting on"--all good utilitarian things to be concerned about. Who cares what you feel about it as long as you're getting on?

Also practically speaking (and what else matters in this family), it's his job to get on and his sister's to get married. So how much worse can it be for Louisa to be married to Bounderby than for Tom to work for him, especially if emotion doesn't enter into it? If Bounderby's a terrible husband, he's also a terrible boss--we've already seen that.

I really do begin to see things from Tom's point of view. Somebody stop me!

Julie wrote: "Tristram wrote: "I think that Tom did his sister a very bad service in that he confirmed Harthouse's suspicions as to the dysfunctional nature of the Bounderby marriage. Tom's words further made it..."

I think Tom's reasoning offers us insight into the workings of a selfish mind like his and that this is an example how across the years of Dickens's career as a writer, he is more and more interested in creating psychologically creditable characters. In his heart of hearts, Tom is probably well aware of the fact that he does not act nobly by his sister (to put it the most mildly), and so he tries to rationalize his own behaviour. By saying that as a girl she does not really have a lot to lose because she does not have to look out for herself like he, Tom, does, he justifies the way he is looking out for himself.

I'm not so sure if that makes Tom a little bit more likeable to me, but at least it makes him more life-like in my eyes because I think that some people argue like that to put some icing on their own self-interest.

Peter wrote: "Julie wrote: "Tristram wrote: "I think that Tom did his sister a very bad service in that he confirmed Harthouse's suspicions as to the dysfunctional nature of the Bounderby marriage. Tom's words f..."

I have the same impression: There is none of the depth and detail we are spoilt with in Dickens's longer novels. It seems to me that Hard Times is more of a "Thesenroman", i.e. a novel that wants to make a social or political statement in the first place and that uses its characters as embodiments of certain attitudes with regard to that statement.

Julie wrote: "I guess there's a hint of government in the suggestion that the mill owners shouldn't complain so much about being ruined "when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery"--presumably these are government inspectors."

That's a very good point you are making here, Julie: I think that the narrator approves of the government measures he alludes to in this passage and that he might wish for more measures to follow the others up. His ideal may well be the paternalistic mill owner who really takes care of his workers but failing which, he might look to the government to step in. What is starkly obvious, however, is that the narrator (Dickens?) regards any attempt of the workers themselves to improve their situations as seditious. Slackbridge is a typical demagogue, and interestingly, all the workers seem like children, good-natured and rather boisterous ones, but all in all, children. Depicting adult men who together with their wives were responsible for the upbringing of their children as children themselves is something that rubs me the wrong way.

Peter wrote: "What a literary whiplash to go from writing the intricate Bleak House to the skeletal Hard Times."

I whole-heartedly subscribe to your sentiment!

Tristram wrote: "I think Tom's reasoning offers us insight into the workings of a selfish mind like his and that this is an example how across the years of Dickens's career as a writer, he is more and more interested in creating psychologically creditable characters."


Yes. I guess most people aren't enjoying the compressed pace of this novel but I don't mind it, as I don't mind skipping the kinds of character tics or slapsticky comic scenes that get beat to death when Dickens has all the time he wants (the Smallweeds come to mind), and I am impressed with how much he does with characters and their psychology on this more limited canvas. I would not say this is my favorite Dickens novel, but it's in the top half of my rankings, and I don't end up thinking an editor could improve the book as regularly as usual.

What is starkly obvious, however, is that the narrator (Dickens?) regards any attempt of the workers themselves to improve their situations as seditious.

Agreed. The book seems to see working-class people as some lower and dependent order of human. This probably shouldn't surprise us all that much since my impression is Dickens really likes his working-class characters but generally seems to present them as comic relief or in loyal supporting roles (or both)--not as the main act.

Julie,

It's interesting to see how people can love different things about Dickens. I go in for those vignettes of comedy that are not really contributing to the flow of the plot, and that's why I love the longer books and even the non-plot-oriented Pickwick Papers a lot.

I don't know if Dickens really does a lot of service to working class people by presenting them as comic relief characters - although such a character can have a dignity of their own, as Mrs. Gamp -, but one thing I definitely know: Stephen Blackpool alienates me in more ways than just one.