This study will analyze Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times in terms of its relationship to Impressionistic paintings. Specifically, the study will compare and contrast the novel and Impressionism with respect to their realistic portrayals of the urban landscape and middle-class city life. The study will argue that while both the book and the paintings do indeed portray these aspects of modern life realistically, Dickens' novel presents a far more critical and negative view than do many Impressionist paintings. Nevertheless, the study will include consideration of Impressionist works which do negatively portray the effects of modern city life.
Dickens is specifically aiming his barbs at the negative impact of education on the developing child, and on the negative social effects which this oppressive educational system has on society as a whole. While Dickens novel is largely realistic in style and subject matter, he nevertheless is critical of the realism ("facts") upon which Thomas Gradgrind bases his educational approach and beliefs:
"Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. . . . You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts. . . . " Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. . . . With a rule and a pair of scales . . . ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature. . . . He [was] . . . charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away (Dickens 11-13).
Dickens does not pull his punches or hide his intentions in his devastating portrait of Gradgrind, a character symbolizing the harsh, mechanical, materialistic, heartless, rational realism of modern life. This critique of realism extends from Gradgrind's classroom (where the children suffer) to Josiah Bounderby's factory (where the workers suffer).
Children and workers alike are meant to be systematically dehumanized by the social, cultural and economic machinery of "realistic" modern lif...