Chapter 11-14 Flashcards
What is the effect of the quote which describes the factory buildings as “fair palaces [which] burst into illumination”?
Dickens is able to make even the poorest segment of society into a palace using Fancy
The term “Hands” itself depersonalises the workers by referring to them as part of the body that performs their tasks in the factories. Much of Hard Times is devoted to point out what?
how the middle classes ignore the poor
Hard Times does not asnwer the question of how the poor live, but instead tries to do what?
to impel us to start asking this question for ourselves
Chapter 14 shows a shift in time, what does suggest?
the relentless machinery of a factory
What does the question of women, marriage and the home fit into?
the idea of an industrialised, mechanised society which comes to the forefront of the story
During the Victorian Era, how was the home widely regarded?
as a place of relaxation and pleasure as an escape from the moral corruption of the business world and from the grinding monotony of factory life
How in Hard Times is the distinction between the home and work dissolved?
In the Gradgrind household, it is almost mechanised as if a factory
When Stephan returns home to his alcoholic wife, his home no longer provides a refuge from the misery of his mundane work life
The home presented in Hard Times derive their tone from the female that inhibits them. How is this true of the Gradgrind household?
Mrs.Gradgring is too complacent to argue with her husband over his mechanistic ways, allowing him to determine the fact-heavy tone of their home
What does Stephan’s wife do to his home?
makes it a wanton den to which Stephan is reluctant to return
IN contrast to Stephans wife, what does Rachel embody?
the qualities that would make a home a happy place, morally pure and generous; representing the Vicrotian ideal of feminiity
Why is the chapter “No way Out’ (11) significant?
as it characterises Stephan’s hopeless marriage and the seemingly futile struggles of the working class
Dickens satirises the Industrial Revolution when he likens the furnaces in the factories to “Fairy Palaces” which belch out “serpents of smoke” what is implied from this?
that the Hands are forced to breathe this poison daily as they struggle with the monstrous machines to earn a pittance
As Blackpool leaves Bounderby’s house what does he conclude?
that the laws of the land “are a muddle”
What is Bounderby’s favourite comment with which he terminates his interview with Blackpool?
“I see trees of turtle soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this”
Through Stephan what thought does Dickens express?
that during the 19th century there was no equality among people except at birth and death
