3Chapter7-9

Question 1

Tom’s amoral attitude is yet another blow to Mr.Gradgrind’s educational system and what furthers this?

Answer 1

when he rejects his sisters kindness

Question 2

The motifs of disguise and hidden identities and disguise are employed as a means of circumventing surveillane and sustaining the suspense. Where does the supsense derive from?

Answer 2

from the stratergies of hide and seek

Question 3

What does young Tom’s characterisation as a “whelp” symbolise?

Answer 3

his debased, animal status which goes to show how far he has fallen

Question 4

Using the traditional imagery of his culture, how does Dickens describe Tom in the circus seen?

Answer 4

as a “blackamoor”

Question 5

Using the traditional imagery of his culture,Dickens describe Tom in the circus scene as a “blackamoor” what is the effect of this?

Answer 5

the intended effect what to represent Tom’s immorality and sin, though for contemporary readers this derogative rhetoric does not appeal to the mid 19th century audience to which Dickens’ wrote.

Question 6

The only thing to clear Tom’s face is alcohol, why is this ironic?

Answer 6

as the use of alohcol to clean the black paint is an interesting juxtaposition to Harthouses’ more metaphorical policing of his own “ugly surface”

Question 7

Why does Bitzer refuse Gradgrind’s appeals at the circus?

Answer 7

as he had been so indoctrinated with the philosophy of fact that he could not succumb to the emotion and mercy of his pleas

Question 8

the characterisation of Bitzer recalls his days in grad grinds classroom and how he has hardly progressed or matured ____.

Answer 8

morally

Question 9

Dickens’ sentimentality dominates his social commentary; and so the upper class characters tend to be dominated by moral faults, though not necessarily with bad intentions. While Dickens’ does not universally portray the poor in a positive light, (Slackbridge, Blackpool’s wife) all of his heroes rise from the ranks of the poor without necessarily doing what?

Answer 9

rising in social standing

Question 10

Many critics argue that Dicken’s characters are what which simply represent ideas?

Answer 10

“straw men”

Question 11

How does Sparsit end up??

Answer 11

with lady scadgers, an old family member, miserable

Question 12

Mr.Gradgrind truly repents of his old philosophies and spends many hours in Parliament trying to present his facts in figures in the service of what; though he is taunted by those who were once his compatriots?

Answer 12

“Faith, Hope and Charity”

Question 13

How do Louisa and Rachel end up?

Answer 13

they both remain unmarried, Louisa lives in comfort and Rachel works into her old age caring for those around her and fully content with what she sees as her “natural lot”

Question 14

What is within the letter Tom sends?

Answer 14

he confesses and begins the journey home but is delayed by illness and dies; his last word is Louisa’s name

Question 15

How is Sissy’s future described?

Answer 15

“Happy Sissy’s, happy children” escape the emotional destruction of the Gradgrins educaionsal system and they love Louisa

Question 16

How does Boudnery die?

Answer 16

from a fit in the streets of Coketown in a mere five years time

Question 17

The one exception to the general rule of poetic justice is what?

Answer 17

the death of Stephan Blackpool

Question 18

How does Dicken’s end the novel intending to rouse sympathy for the poor?

Answer 18

Rachel’s misery of Blackpool’s undeserved death

Question 19

How does Tom heap coals of fire onto Gradgrind’s grief when he recognises the consequences of his educational system to his children?

Answer 19

he refers to facts- statistics which show that a certain percentage of people employed in positions of trust are dishonest

Question 20

the final two chapters offer the complete realisation of the destruction of fact and serve as Dickens’ prophecies of what is to come. How does Bitzer reply when grad grind asks him if he has a heart?

Answer 20

that the circulation “couldn’t be carried without one”

Question 21

How does Bitzer condone his actions to hand in Tom?

Answer 21

that the “Whole social system is a question of self-interest”

Question 22

What does Dickens’ intend to critiise when he uses Bitzer to state that the “whole social system is a question of self interest

Answer 22

dickens’ uses this to suggest the moral flaw of gaining through others’ expense, which is the fundamental ideology of capitalism and the central economic policy of government at this time. In this quote the reader learns here that Dicken’s believed government and society itself was based around “self-interest” rather than maintainig “perfect integrity” in an honest living. Even with Gradgrind’s epiphany at the end of the novel, his work to use facts to service “Faith, Hope and Charity” are merely faced by taunts of his Parliamentarian compatriots suggesting a futile attempt to change the status quo

Question 23

What is significant about the way the novel opens and closes?

Answer 23

in the opening the children are in the classroom, in the end, they are in a circus