PLOT of Hard Times
Soma Debray Department of English, Narajole Raj CollegeC5T DICKENS 19TH CENTURY
A plot of a novel are the components that give final shape to a storyline. They are the events that are interrelated to form a pattern, providing structure to the basic framework. The novel is in fact the organization of such events in a logical manner, to a final shape; characters and settings are oriented along the plot. Dickens is one of the leading pillars of his time, appealing to one and all with his basic human sympathy, his childlike innocence and fecund imagination. Readers need remember that Dickens’ art is one with a purpose. Dickens did not belong to the ivory-tower of aesthetic elitism; rather, he smelt of the wet earth and the rains, of the smog and the sadness that engulfed human existence in the industrial slums. He told tales of deprivation, and of anguish, of starvation, and the dark tunnels of human struggle for existence. His novels portray the lives and struggles of the underdogs of society if often the protagonists end up lucky and rich.
However, Dickens is not someone admired for his plots. The plots of his novels lack tightness and organic unity. He appears more interested in creating individual episodes and individual characters rather than concentrating on integration of the episodes or characters in a seamless fabric. Interestingly, dickens’ novels mock the very ideal of structure or pattern.
Dickens, as a novelist is more a traditionalist. He is a follower of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett; his novels trace the life of the protagonist following his career from childhood to maturity through the struggles and the concerns that challenge and thus make life meaningful.
As a result, the author has to deal with alterations and transitions that are as multifarious as life itself. Often, the episodes move beyond the control of the author and fly about like loose strands in a gale.
One of the reasons for such structural looseness is that the stories evolved as serials in newspapers, where the fate of future episodes were often forced to accommodate readers’
requests about the development of a particular character or event; in keeping with the discipline of serial publications. Such publications are often detrimental for the structural development of the narrative as the course of the stories move from weeks to fortnights to months as the case may be. Then there is the obligation to weave in a punch or two within the fabric of every
PLOT of Hard Times
Soma Debray Department of English, Narajole Raj CollegeC5T DICKENS 19TH CENTURY
episode so as to hold the reader’s attention for the next episode. It is quite natural that Dickens’
novels have very little to boast of when it comes to analysis of plots.
Hard Times (1854), is a sharp satire on contemporary social and economic conditions.
The spotlight of the story is steadily fixed up on the abuses of charity schools and the sub- human sadism of the school-masters, often wealthy capitalists intensely pursuing their own needs and own profits. It deals with concepts of contemporary “political economy” that was also attacked by Ruskin and Carlyle. Set in the fictitious Coketown, the novel is the shortest in the whole of Dickens canon. It is the only novel of Dickens without a Preface. The book upholds the tension between the capitalist owners and the poor labourers with no one to turn to. The book also deals with various burning social questions.
The book begins with a portrayal of Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy merchant in the industrial city of Coketown. He has devoted his life to a philosophy of rationalism. He will allow nothing but Facts; driven by self-interest he is devoted to rationalism. He raises his own children (the eldest two, Louisa and Tom being two very important characters of the novel), according to his philosophy of facts keeping them away from all kinds of imaginative pursuits or fanciful engagements. Gradgrind founds a school where he takes in the kind and imaginative Sissy Jupe, after her father, a circus person, disappears.
As they grow up Tom becomes a confirmed hedonist, full of nothing but self-love; and, Louisa, a confused person struggling with a deep instinct for something that she has missed out in life. Louisa finally marries her father’s friend, Josiah Bounderby, a wealthy banker, more than double her age. This is a liaison approved by Gradgrind; it not only settles his daughter, but also provides opportunity of the good-for-nothing Tom’s apprenticeship at Bounderby’s bank. Bounderby is a man who continuously trumpets his abandonment as an infant by his mother, and the fact that he is a self-made man. Sissy finds a place in the Gradgrind household as a care-giver for the younger children.
Readers get a sneak into the lives of the workers through the sub-plot of Stephen Blackpool. He is a “Hand” --- the lowest of the Coketown labourers, who is in love with
PLOT of Hard Times
Soma Debray Department of English, Narajole Raj CollegeC5T DICKENS 19TH CENTURY
Rachael, another poor factory labour. The two cannot marry because Stephen is already married to a horrible drunken woman often who disappears for long periods. When he tries to arrange for divorce Stephen sadly learns that only the rich can afford one. There is spice for the future when Stephen meets Mrs. Pegler outside Bounderby’s home. She is a strange old woman with an inexplicable devotion to Mr. Bounderby.
The narrative takes a twist with the appearance of James Harthouse, a politically ambitious youth, to Coketown. He is there to begin a political career under Gradgrind, who has become a member of the Parliamemt. However, he is immediately attracted to Louisa and tries to seduce her. He secures the aid of Mrs. Sparsit, an aristocrat widow who had fallen on hard times lately, for corrupting Louisa.
Slackbridge gather the “Hands” to rise against the mill owners. Only Stephen refuses to join as he believes that strikes only serve to escalate the tensions between the owners and the labourers. He is unfriended by the labourers for this. Bounderby tries to use him for spying on the other labours. Stephen refuses. As a result he gets fired. Loisa impressed by Stephen’s integrity helps him with some money before he leaves Coketown, heading back to the village in search of agricultural labour help. Tom, who had accompanied Loisa, asks Stephen to wait before the Bank (Bounderby’s) and he would help. Stephen accordingly waits, but as no help arrives he finally leaves Coketown. Soon the Bank is robbed and suspicions fall up on Stephen as he was seen loitering before it for several nights before his disappearance.
Louisa is confronted by Harthouse who declares his love. Louisa agrees to meet him but eventually she flees to her father and breaks down. She accuses him for having spoilt her life and for marrying her with a man she doesn’t love. As she falls in a heap on the floor Gradgrind is struck by remorse; he faces the failure of a system he deeply believed in.
Sissy convinces Harthouse to leave Coketown. Bounderby, now furious that his wife has deserted him, redoubles his efforts at capturing Stephen. To clear his name Stephen tries to return to Coketown, but falls in a mining pit, only to be discovered by Rachael and Louisa sometime after. He dies after bidding an emotional farewell to Rachael. Soon Louisa and her
PLOT of Hard Times
Soma Debray Department of English, Narajole Raj CollegeC5T DICKENS 19TH CENTURY
father realize that it was Tom who robbed the bank. They try to help him out of the country.
The Circus people, who had been Sissy’s childhood acquaintances try to help them. They are nearly successful only to be stalled by a former student of Gradgrind, Bitzer, who is an embodiment of Gradgrind’s philosophy of detached rationalism. Eventually the Circus people are successful in helping the robber out of England.
Events take an ugly twist when Mrs. Pegler is brought before Bounderby, and it is revealed that this apparently destitute old woman is actually the poor mother of Bounderby who has struggled to give Bounderby the required footing in life. Bounderby is no self-made man after all. Sparsit is fired and sent back to unloving distant relatives. Bounderby too meets death on streets, five years later, all alone and destitute. Gradgrind, realizing the faults of his philosophy, devoted all his political energy in helping the poor. Tom too realizes his error but dies without ever seeing his family again. Sissy marries, has a large and loving family that includes the now all alone Louisa, who learns the virtues of sympathy and of love. The tale ends as a fairy-tale would.
Book One (“Sowing”) serves as good exposition setting the tune of the narrative.
Characters are introduced and the themes are touched up on. Book Two, “Reaping” takes the Biblical adage, ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’ to its fruition. It exposes the fault lines of Utilitarianism; the philosophy of detached rationalism. Brought up without ‘hearts’ Tom and Louisa pursue materialism coldly only to be destroyed. It is the loving, soft-hearted Sissy that saves Louisa. Tom dies loveless. So does Bounderby. The last Book is aptly named
“Garnering”. Gradgrind takes to picking up the pieces he has been responsible in breaking.
The plot is thus loosely jacketed into a morality novel that undoubtedly appealed to the Victorian readers. It has also successfully popped up questions about The System. The narrative finally ends on a happy note , although the strings are hastily tied at the ending.
