Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Review of the Hindi Play based on Hard time.

About Author :

Charles Dickens

Historians have called Charles Dickens the greatest of the Victorian novelists. His creative genius was surpassed only by that of Shakespeare. Many later novelists were to feel the influence of this writer, whose voice became the trumpet of protest against economic conditions of the age. George Bernard Shaw once said that Little Dorrit was as seditious a book as Das Kapital. Thus, according to critics, Dickens' Hard Times is a relentless indictment of the callous greed of the Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy.

Hard Times is a Novel written by Charles Dickens.

In Hard Times, Dickens attacks the industrial evils practiced during his days.Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854.

For more Sound Understanding film screening is a very good idea. Here discussion is about the Play of Novel 'Hard Times : for These Times' .

Performing Play is easy because writer has done everything but performing Novel is difficult because it's different form of literature . Play is written in dialogue form where Novel is not written like that.

Character list & Diagram :

• Thomas Gradgrind 
• Mrs.Gradgrind
• Louisa 
• Thomas Gradgrind (Tom)
• Jane
• Josiah Bounderby 
• Mrs.Pegler 
• Cecelia Jupe (Sissy)
• Mr.Sleary
• Mrs. Sparsit 
• Stephen Blackpool 
• Rachael
• Mr.Mcchoakumchild
• Bitzer

About the Title:

1.Sowing

2.Reaping

3.Garnering

The title Hard Times or the full title Hard Times for These Times refers to the difficulties of life caused by industrialization in England in the 19th century and by the constraints of rigid, fact-based education that arose along with it in the attempt to increase profits and control life and thought.

Hard times Plot Diagram :

1. Mr. Gradgrind outlines his pedagogy: nothing but facts.Rising Action
2. The Gradgrinds take in Sissy Jupe after her father leaves.
3. Stephen Blackpool learns he can't divorce his wife.
4. Tom Gradgrind goes to work at the bank.
5. Louisa Gradgrind marries Mr. Bounderby.
6. James Harthouse arrives and decides to seduce Louisa.
7. Mr. Bounderby fires Stephen for refusing to be an informant.
8. Mr. Bounderby accuses Stephen of robbing the bank.
9. Mrs. Gradgrind dies.
10. Mrs. Sparsit plots and spies on Louisa. Climax
11. Louisa has a crisis when Harthouse professes his love.Falling Action
12. Mr. Bounderby and Louisa's marriage ends.
13. Stephen is rescued from a coal pit and dies soon after.
14. Sissy helps Tom escape after he is revealed as the robber.Resolution
15. Louisa and Sissy settle into relatively contented lives.

This Novel devided into Three parts according to it Play is also divided into Three parts.

1.Sowing

2.Reaping

3.Garnering

This name reflects Agrarian Society of Victorian time and Satire on Industrial Society. 

(Watch this video for more understanding)

The Action of characters is also reflected on this name of plot.

Setup for Play is Cocktown city, It's an imagenary City where Story happens. Cocktown is imaginative figure of writer Charles Dickens. 

Coketown represents all industrial towns of red bricks and black soot; there are full of streets and lanes which are monotonously similar; the towns have houses of the same kind, so there is hardly any difference between the jail and the hospital and between the hospital and the town hall.

If It's Imagination but even their is Reality,

If It's Reality but even their is Imagination. 

(Watch full Play here)

First Scene of the Play :

First Scene of Play is School scene where Teacher teaches students about Fact. A Song plays that give the theme. Words of song was, Fact, Fact, Fact… .It's tell about Fact & Fancy and thought about No Imagination.

This type of education system made People just a part of machine. 

Scene of Song in play that's give a clear Idea of the Theme of original Novel. And make easy to understand. 

During the first book, “Sowing”, we are introduced to the characters and what they are about. The title of this section of the novel is very fitting because it is like they are ‘planting’ their personalities. Dickens believes that the nineteenth-century England’s adoption of industrialization will turn human beings into machines by messing with the development of their emotions and imagination. We see an example of this in the opening lines of chapter one. He starts with Mr. Grangrinds point of view in which he says, “NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…”

In literary works, devices such as theme provide the road map and sign posts for the story. Themes recur and keep the reader on course in order to relate the guiding ideas in a memorable way. In Hard Times, Dickens uses the word "Reaping" to reinforce a theme. Reaping  in the sense of what you do and how you are lead to what rewards or punishments you receive as a result. The expression is what you sow, so shall you reap,which is meant to relate a karmic outcome of what goes around comes around. An example is the unfulfilling marriage that Louisa finds herself in, which leads to her affair. In simple terms, our actions have consequences.

In the third section, whose title, “Garnering,” literally means picking up the pieces of the harvest that were missed, the characters attempt to restore equilibrium to their lives, and they face their futures with new emotional resources at their disposal.Since Charles Dickens wrote of the conditions and the people of his time, it is worthwhile to understand the period in which he lived and worked.

We Construct new story when we Think.

Theme

Capitalism:

Dickens not only attack the industrial evils of his time, but also portrays capitalism and factory owner inhuman. As a manufacturer, Bounderby adopts an arrogant attitude towards the workmen and does not feel the least sympathy for them in their troubles or in their desire for a better life.

Job Market:

Stepher Blackpool don't join worker's union 

but he repeats his belief that the union will do no good. When he refuses to spy on the other Hands, Bounderby angrily dismisses him from the factory.

Truth Speakers not wanted in Private companies.

Industrialization :

The novel Hard Times contains the vivid pictures  of ugliness of the industrialism which was raising Victorian Age. Coketown is described as a town of machine. 

Touch & Open for known : Machine Makes Man as a Mechanical ?

Union : 

Worker's union organized for the sake of their own benefits and rights which rich people don't want to give them. 

Logic & Reason : 

Logic & Reason are good to think but if we alway think about that then it's problematic. 

Agrarian Society 

Imagination 

Marriage & Divorce

Symbol

Hand:

the workmen are not men at all; they are “hands”, so many hundred hands, “So many hundred horse steam power”. These men are not supposed to have any souls; they are hands who have to work upon “the  crashing, smashing, tearing mechanisms, day in and day out”.

Charity:

Charity is Idea which don't allow to think why Someone is Poor. 

Mrs.Louisa offers money to Stephen Blackpool help him on his way. Deeply touched, Stephen agrees to accept only two pounds, which he promises to pay back.

Here we can see the the of Charity of Victorian time.

Idea of Charity by Karl Marx is ideal idea.

Use and Throw things :

People says use & throw things affect us in negative way they say after the using those think person also behave like with human relationships 

But counter argument is that before arriving use & throw things people have to use human and others resources as use and throw.

Neo Rich Class:

A person newly Rich. This type of class is a part of industrial revolution. 

Staircase:

Symbol of staitcase in play shows the Downfall of Mrs.Louisa . This type of symbol used in many films.

(Word count by Google Docs: 1309, Embaded blog's word count: 203)