Analysis of Love in Hard Times.doc

艰难时世中的情感解析Analysis of Love in Hard TimesAbstract: Hard Times is the immortal masterpiece of the great critical realistic writer, Charles Dickens. In the novel Dickens expressed his human love for the poor, revealing that love generates strength, love triumphs over Facts, and love brings about hope. Through analyzing the love in Hard Times, it is concluded that Hard Times is full of love. Key words: Charles Dickens; Hard Times; human love摘要：艰难时世是杰出的批判现实主义作家查尔斯·狄更斯的不朽之作。小说中狄更斯表达了对穷人的人性之爱，揭示出爱是力量的源泉，爱能战胜“事实”教育，爱能给人们带来希望。笔者意在分析这部小说中的人性之爱，指出艰难时世中充满爱。关键词: 查尔斯·狄更斯；艰难时世；人性之爱ContentsI. Introduction.1II. Literary Review.1A. Charles Dickens.1 1. Life.12.Works.13. Comments.2 B. Hard Times.21. The main idea.22. The fiction.33. The study at home.3III. The Plot of Hard Times.4A. Sowing.4B. Reaping.5C. Garnering.5IV. The Love in Hard Times.5A. Human love.5 B. Love generates strength.61. Rachael and Stephens wife.62. Rachael and Stephen.7C. Love triumphs over Facts.81. Love and Facts.82. Comments.8D. Love brings about hope.91. The hope of Stephen.92. The hope of solutions.10V. Conclusion.10Works Cited.12I. IntroductionCharles Dickens has achieved popular recognition to a degree rarely equaled in English men of letters since the publication of his first novel. With regard to his great work-Hard Times, critics both at home and abroad have made much progress on the study of themes and characters, although Hard Times has not attracted as much attention as Great Expectations or Bleak House. However, the perspectives in those studies on Hard Times are somewhat limited in the sense that most people think that in a world of indiference, selfishness and dishonesty, people are thrown into a desperate state, feeling lonely and helpless. However, we should learn to look at the bright side of our life. It is not difficult to see that Hard Times is full of truth, beauty and kindness. It is with the intention of providing the readers with a better understanding of Hard Times that I have decided to write the present dissertation. II. Literary ReviewA. Charles Dickens1. Life Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7th, 1812. At the age of eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in a London blacking warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. His realistic writing style had a great influence on subsequent writers like Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Bernard Shaw. Dickens novels go beyond the social injustices and highlight on the distortion and alienation of human nature. As one of the most realistic writers, Dickens directs his fictions to a questioning of social injustices and inequalities. 2. WorksWith Pickwick Papers (1836-7) Dickens achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was already the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten people in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickelby (1838-9), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable A Christmas Carol (1843). Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.3. Comments As the greatest representative of British critical realistic writer of the 19th century, Charles Dickens has been enthusiastically criticized both before and after his death. For instance:He is both the most imaginative and fantastic and the most topical and documentary of great Novelist (Leavis 60). Ralf Waldo Emerson once said: “ Im afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and never be free from it nor set to rest. He daunts me! ” (Collins 69). Apart from the comments abroad, here is one of the comments at home.Critics have always been challenged by his art, and often analyze Dickens works from perspectives such as historical background, his own life experiences and his writing techniques (Luo 136). From the above, we can see that the critics are obsessive about Charles Dickens himself and his works.B. Hard TimesDismissed initially as “sullen socialism”, the novel gained new life with F. R. Leavis positive critical treatment in The Great Tradition (1948). Leavis considered Hard Times as Dickens “masterpiece” and “his only serious work of art”. Since then it has been one of Dickens best-sellers, widely taught in schools, partly due to the fact that it is Dickens shortest major work.1.The main ideaHard Times is Dickens strong and direct attack on industrial conditions in the Midlands, and a one-sided attack on the utilitarian value system of the middle 19th century based upon emotional blue-collar appeals for labor sympathy.Instead of presenting a historically accurate picture of the extraordinary changes brought about by the industrial revolution, Hard Times, which is written on the basis of an investigation of the industrial Manchester town, gives a true but sorrowful life of Coketown, and shows the writers deep concern with the morality problems of people in industrialization. 2. The fiction In the west, there are two ways of reading into Hard Times. Read it as a fiction of city. From this respect, we can see Mr. Bounderby reiterates his rise from birth-in-a-ditch to industrial and financial eminence, that brings the poor and the homeless to the center of Dickers stage; rather, it is in their relations to the hegemonic middle class that Dickens explores the range of possibilities offered by the urban theatre of modern life (Jordan 116). Read it as a fiction of childhood. While Dickens invariably set himself against religious severity (which he always associated with the spirit of the Old Testament), he was nevertheless good at imagining wicked children as spotless onesfor example, Tom Gradgrind in Hard Times, a veritable “monster” of selfishness who grows into a young man given to “grovelling sensualities” (Qualls 93). 3.The study at homeSome critics focus on the relationship between people and the industrial society such as the negative influences upon people of the Great Industrial Revolution. Take the paper On Dehumanizing Industrialization In Charles Dickens Novels-Oliver Twist, Hard Times and Great Expectations as an example. The author Li Ting holds that industrialization creates alienation of humanity. For instance, Mrs. Sparsit in Hard Times is a “decent” lady and always shows her respect to Mr. Bounderby. But deep in her heart, she looks down upon him, calling him “stupid”. She is courteous to Louisa, but in private she always despises her.The concept of dehumanizing industrialization in Hard Times is revealed in alienation of humanity both physically and mentally, which includes the loss of human dignity as a result of the changes of the environment and way of life, loss of free mind, feeling of insignificance as well as creation of double personality.Some other critics focus on charateration. By means of analyzing the male psychological tendency through the female characters created in Hard Times, He Rundong holds that Dickens view cant avoid from the influence of male authority and their culture due to his own sex. Although Dickens showed supremely sympathy and understanding to women, he was still ready to obey the traditional gender prejudice and value prejudice.This paper discusses the description of Sissy in Dickens Hard Times through several aspects, such as Sissys influence on the Gradgrind family and other people, the portrayal of Sissys character, etc. Through the description of Sissy, Dickens humanist thought and reformist thought are made evident. The author concludes that Dickens reformist thought, that is, solving social conflicts by mild reform, was progressive and feasible under the social circumstances of that time (He 50).III. The Plot of Hard TimesA. SowingThomas Gradgrind runs a school of hard fact in the industrial city of Coketown. He happens to see his children, Louisa and Tom, peering into a circus in direct opposition to his views on things of fancy. The cause for the offense, suggested by his friend Josiah Bounderby, a “self-made man” banker and mill owner in Coketown, is that Sissy Jupe, the daughter of one of the circus folk from Slearys traveling circus, has been enrolled in Gradgrinds school and is a bad influence.Gradgrind and Bounderby proceed to visit the girls father in order to have her removed from school. They find that he has abandoned the girl and Gradgrind agrees to take her in in the hope of reforming her on the condition that she never mentions her former life.Stephen Blackpool, a power loom weaver in Bounderbys mill, is married to a drunk. When he asked Bounderby how he can get out of his marriage, aiming at marrying Rachael. Bounderby tells him that he married for better or worse and without money cannot be released from the marriage. Stephen sees that despite the poor conditions in the factories, the union is not a very feasible option because the negotiator, Slackbridge, as his name suggests, is a very poor “bridge” between the workers and the owners. Because he does not support the union, his peers reject him. Before long he is fired by Bounderby.Tom, Louisa, and Sissy finish school, Sissy unsatisfactorily. Tom is apprenticed to Bounderby. Bounderby asked Gradgrind for Louisas hand and she reluctantly agrees to marry him on the chance of helping Tom. Sissy remains with Mrs. Gradgrind to help raise three younger children.B. ReapingJames Harthouse, a characteristic member of the upper-class, comes to Coketown to search for something else to bide his time with. Harthouse is very manipulative and toys with peoples emotions and disregards their feelings in favor of his own fancy. Tom has taken to gambling and has fallen heavily into debt. Louisa and Tom visit Stephen and Louisa sympathetically offers money to help him relocate. Tom takes Stephen aside and asks him to loiter around the bank in the evenings before he leaves town on the pretense of offering work.The bank is robbed and Blackpool, seen loitering about the bank in the days before the robbery, is suspected. Mrs. Sparsit, Bounderbys housekeeper, captures Mrs. Pegler and brings her to Bounderbys house where she is revealed to be Bounderbys loving mother, disproving Bounderbys story of being a self-made man, abandoned as a child.Harthouse falls in love with Louisa and tries to lure her away from her unhappy marriage to Bounderby. She flees to her father and reveals the unhappiness she has felt since childhood. He softens as he realizes the mistakes he made in her education. C. GarneringLouisa stays with his father, cared for by Sissy. Bounderby abandons Louisa. Rachael and Sissy, walking in the country, come across Stephens hat near a deserted mine and realize he has fallen in. They summon help. Stephen is brought out alive but dies on the way back to town. Before dying he tells Mr. Gradgrind to question his son, Tom, concerning the robbery. Tom, knowing that capture is close at hand escapes, with the help of Sissy, to a town where Slearys Circus is performing. Thomas, Sissy, and Louisa meet him there and, after a last minute attempt by Bitzer to capture him, escapes abroad, with the help of the circus folk, where he later dies in misery. Thomas Gradgrind abandons his inflexible demands for facts in favor of “Faith, Hope, and Charity”.IV. Love in Hard TimesA. Human love In Dickens opinion, individual “human love” may turn a weak person into a strong and fearless one to protect whom he or she loves. Its much more powerful and energetic than Facts; and it brings about hope and future for human beings. If everyone is able to love, if everyone cares for others with their loving heart, if everyone is surrounded by love, what a bright and happy world will it be for all human beings? How can any evil still exist in such a beautiful world? While industrialization has brought the Great Britain unprecedented economic development it has consigned the common people to an impersonalized world of loneliness and helplessness, in which they have lost their innocence, their passions, their free mind and their true nature (Zhao 78). Hard Times, written in the background of industrialization, not only gives a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the hypocritical ruling class, but also shows a pround sympathy for the honest and good-hearted common people of the opressed and exploited lower class.B. Love generates strength1. Rachael and Stephens wife Industrialization brought England profits as well as problems. Wealth grew hand in hand with poverty and social injustice. Trade and manufacturing based their economic growth on shameless intrigue and merciless exploitation. The steam engine became “a powerful monster” enslaving millions of people. Under Dickens pen the Coketown was a living hell for the proleariat. It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled (Dickens 18).People all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next (Dickens 18).Caught up in the plight, Stephens wife chose to look for a release in her own way. “She took to drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, and played old Gooseberry. She disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad.” (Dickens 60) She cared about nothing and loved nobody. We can say that it is the