Major characters
Mr. Gradgrind
Thomas Gradgrind is a utilitarian who is the founder of the educational system in Coketown. "Eminently practical" is Gradgrind's recurring description throughout the novel. He believes in facts, and statistics. Only after his daughter's breakdown does he come to a realisation that things such as poetry, fiction and other pursuits are not "destructive nonsense."
Mr. Bounderby
Josiah Bounderby is a business associate of Mr. Gradgrind. Given to boasting about being a self-made man, he employs many of the other central characters of the novel. He has risen to a position of power and wealth from humble origins, though not as humble as he claims. He marries Mr. Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, some 30 years his junior, in what turns out to be a loveless marriage. They have no children. Bounderby is callous, self-centred and ultimately revealed to be a liar and fraud.
Louisa
Louisa (Loo) Gradgrind, later Louisa Bounderby, is the eldest child of the Gradgrind family. She has been taught to suppress her feelings and finds it hard to express herself clearly, saying as a child she has "unmanageable thoughts." After her unhappy marriage, she is tempted into adultery by James Harthouse, but resists him and returns to her father. Her rejection of Harthouse leads to a new understanding of life and of the value of emotions and the imagination. She reproaches her father for his dry and fact-based approach to the world and convinces him of the error of his ways.
Sissy Jupe
Cecilia (Sissy) Jupe is a circus girl of Sleary's circus, as well as a student of Thomas Gradgrind's very strict classroom. Sissy has her own set of values and beliefs which make her seem unintelligent in the Gradgrind household. At the end of the novel, when the Gradgrinds' philosophy of religiously adhering solely to facts breaks down, Sissy is the character who teaches them how to live.
Sissy Jupe is first introduced to the readers as Girl Number Twenty in Gradgrind's classroom. She struggles to keep up with Gradgrind's extreme reliance on the recitation of facts, and therefore is seen as not worthy for the school. Sissy is also representative of creativity and wonderment because of her circus background, and those were things that the Gradgrind children were not allowed to engage in. With the urging of Josiah Bounderby, Mr. Gradgrind goes to inform Sissy's father that she can no longer attend his school.
Gradgrind and Bounderby arrive at the Pegasus' Arms, the public-house of Coketown where Sissy, her father, and the rest of Sleary's circus were staying. While Sissy and her father were very close once, Mr. Jupe packed up and abandoned his daughter, leaving Sissy alone. In a moment of compassion, Mr. Gradgrind takes Sissy into his home and gives her a second chance at the school. Sissy continues to fall behind in the school, so Mr. Gradgrind keeps her at home to tend to his invalid wife.
While Sissy is the device of imagination and fantasy in the novel, she also serves as the voice of reason. The reason she cannot grasp the philosophy of Gradgrind's classroom is because she actually has a more realistic view of how the world should be perceived . After Lousia and Mr. Gradgrind come to terms with the fact that their way of life is not working, Sissy is the one they come to; she takes care of Lousia and helps her live a new, happy life. [3]
Tom
Thomas (Tom) Gradgrind, Junior is the oldest son and second child of the Gradgrinds. Initially sullen and resentful of his father's Utilitarian education, Tom has a strong relationship with his sister Louisa. He works in Bounderby's bank (which he later robs), and turns to gambling and drinking. Louisa never ceases to adore Tom, and she aids Sissy and Mr. Gradgrind in saving her brother from arrest.
Old Stephen
Stephen Blackpool is a worker at one of Bounderby's mills. He has a drunken wife who no longer lives with him but who appears from time to time. He forms a close bond with Rachael, a co-worker, whom he wishes to marry. After a dispute with Bounderby, he is dismissed from his work at the Coketown mills and, shunned by his former fellow workers, is forced to look for work elsewhere. While absent from Coketown, he is wrongly accused of robbing Bounderby's bank. On his way back to vindicate himself, he falls down a mine-shaft. He is rescued but dies of his injuries.
Other characters
Bitzer – is a very pale classmate of Sissy's and brought up on facts and is taught to operate according to self-interest. He takes up a job in Bounderby's bank, and later tries to arrest Tom.
Rachael - is the friend of Stephen Blackpool who attests to his innocence when he is accused of robbing Bounderby's bank. She is a factory worker, childhood friend of Blackpool's drunken and often absent wife, and becomes the literary tool for bringing the two parallel story lines together at the brink of Hell's Shaft in the final book.
Mrs. Sparsit – is a "classical" widow who has fallen on hard times. She is employed by Bounderby, and is jealous when he marries Louisa, delighting in the belief that Louisa is later about to elope with James Harthouse. Her machinations are unsuccessful and she is ultimately sacked by Bounderby.
James Harthouse – is an indolent, languid, upper-class gentleman, who attempts to woo Louisa.
Mrs. Gradgrind – the wife of Mr. Gradgrind, is an invalid and complains constantly.
Major themes
Relating back to Dickens' aim to "strike the heaviest blow in my power," he wished to educate readers about the working conditions of some of the factories in the industrial towns of Manchester, and Preston. Relating to this also, Dickens wished to confront the assumption that prosperity runs parallel to morality, a notion which is systematically deconstructed in this novel through his portrayal of the moral monsters, Mr. Bounderby, and James Harthouse. Dickens was also campaigning for the importance of imagination in life, and not for people's life to be reduced to a collection of material facts and statistical analyses. Dickens' favourable portrayal of the Circus, which he describes as caring so "little for Plain Fact", is an example of this.
Fact vs. Fancy
This theme is developed early on, the bastion of Fact being the eminently practical Mr. Gradgrind, and his model school, which teaches nothing but Facts. Any imaginative or aesthetic subjects are eradicated from the curriculum, but analysis, deduction and mathematics are emphasised. Conversely, Fancy is the opposite of Fact, encompassing, fiction, music, poetry, and novelty shows such as Sleary's circus. It is interesting that Mr. Sleary is reckoned to be a fool by the Fact men, but it is Sleary who realises people must be "amuthed" (amused). This is made cognisant by Tom's sybaritic gambling and Louisa, who is virtually soulless as a young child, and as a married woman. Bitzer, who has adhered to Gradgrind's teachings as a child, turns out to be an uncompassionate egotist.
Officiousness and spying
Prying and knowledge is key to several characters, namely Mrs. Sparsit and Mr. Bounderby. Mr. Bounderby spends his whole time fabricating stories about his childhood, covering up the real nature of his upbringing, which is solemnly revealed at the end of the novel. While not a snooper himself, he is undone by Sparsit unwittingly revealing the mysterious old woman to be his own mother, and she unravels Josiah's secrets about his upbringing and fictitious stories. Mr. Bounderby himself superintends through calculating tabular statements and statistics, and is always secretly rebuking the people of Coketown for indulging in conceitful activities. This gives Bounderby a sense of superiority, as it does with Mrs. Sparsit, who prides herself on her salacious knowledge gained from spying on others. Bounderby's grasp for superiority is seen in Blackpool's talks to Bounderby regarding divorce proceedings and a union movement at his factory, accusing him that he is on a quest 'to feast on turtle soup and venison, served with a golden spoon.' All "superintendents" of the novel are undone in one way, or another.
Honesty
This is closely related to Dickens' typical social commentary, which is a theme he uses throughout his entire œuvre. Dickens portrays the wealthy in this novel as being morally corrupt. Bounderby has no moral scruples; he fires Blackpool "for a novelty". He also conducts himself without any shred of decency, frequently losing his temper. He is cynically false about his childhood. Harthouse, a leisured gent, is compared to an "iceberg" who will cause a wreck unwittingly, due to him being "not a moral sort of fellow", as he states himself. Stephen Blackpool, a destitute worker, is equipped with perfect morals, always abiding by his promises, and always thoughtful and considerate of others, as is Sissy Jupe.
رد مع اقتباس
المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة سامح محمد
محمد عادل 2323