How is Coketown described in hard times?

Coketown is described as being “inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next” (27-28).

What is utilitarianism hard times?

In the novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens connives a theme of utilitarianism, along with education and industrialization. Utilitarianism is the belief that something is morally right if it helps a majority of people. It is a principle involving nothing but facts and leaves no room for creativity or imagination.

What is the point of Hard Times by Charles Dickens?

Charles Dickens, in his novel, “Hard Times,” criticizes the education system. Dickens was a reformer. The purpose of this novel was to start a change in the system. Dickens saw the lack of imagination, and as a writer, of course, disapproves.

What colors does Charles Dickens use to describe Coketown?

The use of colour by Dickens to describe Coketown portrays the corrupt nature of the town, ‘Unnatural red and black… the painted face of a savage”[1]. It is a ‘savage'[2] farce of civilisation for the people living within it.

How is symbolism used in Hard Times?

In Hard Times, the circus symbolizes learning through experience. It’s here that Sissy Jupe learns what a horse is, for example, without needing to give the kind of precise, lexicographical definition insisted upon by Mr. Gradgrind.

Who were the hands in Hard Times?

Workers, referred to as “the Hands” in Hard Times, were forced to work long hours for low pay in cramped, sooty, loud, and dangerous factories. Because they lacked education and job skills, these workers had few options for improving their terrible living and working conditions.

How is Hard Times a satire?

Dickens’s Hard Times is a satire that exposes the flaws of the Victorian society and its compliance with Utilitarianism. His critique of characters and institutions is conveyed through irony and bitter sarcasm. Dickens relies on comedy and irony in his satire.

Does Hard Times have a protagonist explain?

Louisa. Sometimes the protagonist is a hero, and sometimes just the main character. Louisa is a deeply flawed young woman, but we care about her progress, and want for her to become a better person with a more fulfilling less emotionally-repressed life.

Who is the protagonist in Hard Times?

Louisa Gradgrind is the protagonist and heroine of Dicken’s novel, Hard Times.

What technique is serpents of smoke?

To evoke the feelings of fear in his readers, Dickens uses similes to compare the colours of the city to ‘the painted face of a savage,’ and the movement of the machines to a great ‘elephant in a state of melancholy madness,’ and smoke turns into ‘interminable serpents’ through metaphor.

Is Coketown a real place?

Coketown, the fictional city in Hard Times, the Charles Dickens novel based on Preston, Lancashire during the industrial revolution.

What are the themes of Hard Times?

Themes

  • The Mechanization of Human Beings. Hard Times suggests that nineteenth-century England’s overzealous adoption of industrialization threatens to turn human beings into machines by thwarting the development of their emotions and imaginations.
  • The Opposition Between Fact and Fancy.
  • The Importance of Femininity.

How is Coketown described in the book Hard Times?

Like many other descriptions of Coketown, this passage, from Book the Second, Chapter 1, emphasizes its somber smokiness. The murky soot that fills the air represents the moral filth that permeates the manufacturing town. Similarly, the sun’s rays represent both the physical and moral beauty that Coketown lacks.

Which is the most important fact in Coketown?

And the most important fact is that Coketown, as its name would suggest, is built on industry; and it is the needs of industry that education, in Mr. Gradgrind’s narrow-minded view, exists to serve. We are introduced properly to Coketown, the major setting of this excellent Dickensian novel, in Chapter 5 of Book the First.

What is the significance of setting in hard times?

A symbolic setting is one which plays an important role in the philosophy of the book. Such a setting is Coketown, England. Coketown, with all its brick buildings and its conformity and sterility and the Educational System, is conspicuous as part of the setting.

What did Charles Dickens mean by Coketown?

Coketown seems to be portrayed as a city of work and not anything else. It is put across that the town consists of only fact and nothing else to alleviate the dullness. Charles Dickens is sharing his analysis on the social issues implicated in this town through a narrative that reflects upon the environment.