rind have to find his son in a traveling circus negro servant. He then discovers his son could only escape because the non-utilitarian Mr. Sleary permitted him to use the disguise. We see how satire and humor are able to evoke self-reflection. In order for people to change their minds on political issues or economic matters, they often must reflect on their current behavior in order to understand its error or selfishness or some other less than honorable motive. We see this mirrored by the comedy used by Dickens when Gradgrind must discover that this foppish servant in black face is none other than his perfect son:
In a preposterous coat, like a beadleÆs, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, knee breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked-hat; with nothing fitting him, and everything coarse material, moth-eaten, and full of holes; with seams in his black face, where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition, daubed all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other means have believed in, weighable and measurable fact thought it was. And one of his model children had come to this!
The reason Dickens is using satire and comedy to appeal to the leadership to reflect on their grievous faults, is because it is the leadership or governing classes whose opinion he hopes to change. Dickens is not a democrat and we see him mock the institution of labor unions in this novel. He is not trying to put out a call for revolution or the working poor taking their fate into their own hands. However, he is trying to elicit change from the governing classes. As noted by George Bernard Shaw, ôHe appeals again and again to the governi
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