2Chapter1-3 Flashcards
Why does James Harthouse take interest in Grandgrind’s politics?
because he hopes they will alleviate his pervasive boredom, he does not really share his philosophy of fact but is prepared to pretend that he does in order to pass the time.
If Stephan represents the poor, and Bounderby and Gradgrind the wealthy middle class, who are Mrs.Spars and Arthouse?
they are satires of the aristocracy
Dependant on Bounderby for her well-being, Mrs.Sparsit is adept at manipulating her circumstances around her belief that she is a great lady wronged by others. Much as Bonderby takes pride in his humble origins, what does Mrs.Sparsit frequently bring up the fact of?
that she descends from one of the best families in the kingdom
Dickens often satirises her by describing her control over her fears, claiming that she makes her aritrocratic Roman nose “_____________” in a moment of outrage?
more Roman
Arthouse with his worldly cynicism and sohphisictaed boredom is immediately presented as a foil to the more provinical characters in Coketown as he is neither committed to the philosophy of fact nor capable of any fancy; rather what is he?
he is simply looking out of his aristocratic haze for something to pass the time
Arthouse is a stereotypical aristocratic figure- he is not motivated by the desire for wealth or power, but rather by what?
by boredom and the desire for some new form of entertainment
Mr.Bounderby is convinced that the poor are after a “gold spoon and _____ _____”
turtle spoon
The scenes that revolve around Mrs.Sparsit are all about the trappings of social class and position. In sharp contrast to the Gradgrinds, Mrs.Sparsit takes her lack of knowledge as a fashionable symptom of her simple virtue. What will eventually prove to be her undoing?
gaining information about the people around her
It is very humorous that Harthouse is being hired to install discipline and order when he is wholly lacking in conviction. He is the first character in the novel whose thoughts are rendered verbatim to the reader; what is the effect of this?This
This reflects his transparency and thus lack of depth as a member of the aristocracy
`how is louisa’s face describes in chapter 2?
as a face whose “natural play was so locked up” that Arthouse is unable to decipher her true thoughts and emotions
Louisa’s face is described as a face whose “natural play was so locked up”, what is meant by this?
the natural play is a metaphor for Louisa’s facial gestures and her expression but the state of their incarceration and the lack of freedom being so locked up stands as a symbol for Louisa’s experience as a whole
Tom’s new characterisation in chapter 3 as a “whelp” is certainly a sing of bad things to come. Indeed, Tom’s conditions comes to be less a matter of foreshadowing so much as it shows the inevitable workings of fate. How is this a form of protest?
arguably Dickens does this to protest against the inherent sense of entitlement which clouds Tom’s character and perpetuates the tyrannical system that lays in the power of those incapable of moral correctness and over indulgent; throughout the novel he becomes involved in drugs, tabacoo and gambling
The most important feature of tom’s drunkeness is that it has an innocent destructive activity; though his intentions are not ______ he is unaware of what greater evil he sets in motion.
pure
