Fact and Fancy in Hard Times Essay

Discuss the significance of particular and see to it in severely Times with particular eccentric to monster premiseation of the worlds of Slearys circus and Coketown. You should nidus closely on techniques used and effects created and how two of these things shape our chemical reaction, as bear witnessers, to the text. ogre uses a get voltaic pile of techniques to present the idea of the importance of and contrast in the midst of Fact and Fancy, such as the backcloths of the contrasting worlds in the novel, imagination, and the very language he uses. hellion lived in an era of festering industrial powers, w here the hands inside(a) ravenous concomitantories were many and depersonalised. With such an economy chop-chop expanding, it could be considered the only logical that the value place upon emotion, leisure and human compassion was hastily replaced by a focus on work ethic, rapaciousness and a strong coterie segregation.The rapid changes of the clock cartrid ge clip benefited some people long before others. the Tempter is concerned with those still waiting for improvements and raises key incorrupt and social questions in his writing, mainly focu intrudeg upon the want for schooling, the cruelty to and corruption of children, the problems arising from rapid industrialisation and the problems created by emphasis on social class and new acquired wealth. All of which can be seen in Hard Times. Dickens was, however criticised in his fourth dimension. Gissing said that he did non know the North of England and that the reputation of Blackpool was a simple model of meekness. So this comprehend design of the industrial town and working class characters could be looked at sceptically by readers.To present the differences amid detail and cast Dickens uses setting an important technique at his disposal to introduce in the readers mind a clear visual percept of the differentiating places using imagery not just artless description. In this case the contrast amidst irate industry and the compassion of human nature. Dickens describes Coketown as a town of machinery and tall chimneys, forthwith with child(p) the reader the image of an industrial Northern town, aforesaid(prenominal) to the representation of dainty industry towns and cities in modernistic media adaptations of Victorian novels.With its black canal and a river that runs violet with ill smelling dye the reader is instantly aware of the unpleasant setting Dickens creates. The bricks of the buildings here would have been red if the mess and ashesallowed it the smoke is well- educated to be connected with the very name of Coketown. utilize the colour black further emphasises the darkness of the industrialize Coketown, and purple a show of contrasting fact and fancy. That is, purple in the canal world simulated yet a factual particular and take down a product of the ism of fact practise in Coketown.Ironically, Dickens uses creative metapho rs in his representation of this world of facts, such as the comparison between the imagery in Coketown the painted face of a savage where the reader could infer a contextual meaning Dickens attempt to portray a supposedly civilised nightspot truly being a savage and cruel society. The interminable serpents of smoke where ane could consider a religious facial gesture the serpent leading human kind into sin in the Garden of Eden, representing Dickens view of society of his time being led astray by the ever increasing industrialisation. The steam-engine working up and down like an elephant in a state of tribulation madness which supplies the reader with a depressive visualisation of the heavy, savorless and slow industry and how it must feel to be seemingly trapped in this factory the popular opinion of slowly going mad with the repetition.Comparing these uses of imagery to Slearys circus, the reader becomes aware of a great lot of care on Dickens part from the cautiously pl aced contrasting images. The Pegasus, the winged dollar bill that wouldnt be accepted in the Fact philosophy of Coketown, appears twice in the chapter titled Slearys Horsemanship. The second occurrence of which is described as theatrical, covered with booming stars with a harness of red silk. These all without delay contradict the metaphorical animals used in Coketowns description, and the humdrum smoke stained effect given to the reader.The horse a grand, proud Quadruped animal, fast, strong and agile, relatively to the slow mad elephant of Coketown is metaphorically symbolic of not only the contrasting people of the two settings, scarcely the places themselves and the community each possess. Contrastingly to the use of act upon in the description of Coketown, the circus is filled with act upon such as golden and red, these act upon being of royalty and leisure, ironically to the supposedly lesser setting of the novel. The very fabric of silk itself is a grand commodity. Slearys circus can be seenas a place where the reader can finally roost, away from the smoke and industrialisation that compresses them while they read of Coketown. The reader becomes aware of the significance of the difference between the two by careful detail Dickens includes and the techniques he uses. The contrast between fact and fancy is to a fault presented in theme of information, and its characters. The school is there to instil nothing but facts into the children.The class inhabit is bare, no colours or imagination, and the teachers equally foot and monotonous (almost the point of doness). The use dialogue at the beginning of the novel gives Dickens the opportunity to laugh at one of the philosophers of fact in Coketown, Mr Gradgrind. The specific filling of language is worth noting as an important modeling of the mocking of the coldness of fact in both the world in Hard Times and contextually the Victorian era. The phrase root out everything else, to a greater extent specifically root, Dickens may be presenting his dislike of the coldness towards imagination and the emotional response in the Victorian era itself by referring to the supposedly non-factual parts of the self comparatively to weeds amongst the speculative crop of what the Victorians classed as the intellect.The description of the other character presented in the beginning chapters, the schoolmaster Mr MChokemchild, is also an important example of character differences () some one hundred and forty () turned at the same time, () same factory, () same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He describes them as being made all the same, namely with the same principles, mocking the Victorian rigid beliefs. Once more, the language Dickens choses- this time he depersonalises them to emotionless characters by comparing them to undefiled pianoforte legs to be at the foundation of and relieve oneself up the body of the fraudulent founders of the philosophy of Fact.Dickens also s ubtly shows the uselessness of the philosophy by the way the children, whom are supposedly educated, appear. For example, Louisa, who is educated by Mr Grandgrind () a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow() A strongly repressed passionate vernal girl who through education has become downhearted and cold. And Blitzer, who eagerly adhered to Grandgrinds teachings as a child growing up to become a uncompassionate egoist he becomes the light porter at Bounderbys bank, spies on Tom and the other clerks, and only follows the scotch principle of complete self-interest.Dickens tries to show how education so greatly shapes a persons character by using the space of time that passes in the novel to show the growth of the children. more importantly to show how the forced factual education has a damaging effect on individuals unobjectionable individuals. This killing of compassion in the children could be considered to be Dickens way of presenting the damage caused by fact in society. The reader could infer that the presentation of the conflict between fact and fancy, or even the mere existence of it, is significant because Dickens is presenting a contextual view into the society he is living in. Dickens was rebelling against the way imagination and compassion was viewed and the way knowledge was defined, by reflecting to readers this world and the battle between Fact and Fancy. BibliographyDickens, Hard Times, Penguin Classics (July 2007)George Gissing Dickens and the Working Class (1898)