The extract is taken from the second chapter of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, published in 1854.

The title of the novel, Hard Times, conveys Dickens’ opinion about his contemporary society; in particular it expresses a strong criticism of the industrial system.

In addition, the title of the extract, Murdering the Innocents, might suggest a real killing of someone who does not have any guilt; but in this case it is not real, it is the murder of an individual’s opinion. In order to have e murder, there must be a killer: Thomas Gradgrind.

The chapter starts with Thomas Gradgrind’s introduction. He seems to be a famous person, balanced, cold and without feelings, self-confident.

In this section Mr.Dickens uses language in order to better characterize him: the syntactic variation of the length of periods creates a climatic effect that culminate in the last sentence “You might hope […] – no sir!” with an exclamation mark. 

Besides all the adjectives used belong to the semantic field of mathematics, creating a caricature of his rational aspect. 

Thomas Gradgrind is a flat character, and the narrator does not let the reader have any different opinion about him.

The second part of the extract deals with a dialogue between Mr.Gradgrind and Mrs.Sissy Jupe.

Mr.Gradgrind is an English teacher in a school for poor children; he addresses to Sissy calling her “girl number twenty”. In poor children schools relationship between students and teacher were absent and education system was very rigid.

In the first part of the dialogue Mrs.Sissy tries to introduce herself, but Mr.Gradgrind, apparently teaching her how to speak correctly, changes his answers, so he’s forming his mind as he wants.

This reflects Victorian’s utilitarianism conception of education: to form a generation of students only able to obey.

Dialogue ends because she’s unable to give a definition of horse, so Mr.Gradgrind asks it to Bitzer, one of the students that are sitting near Sissy.

Bitzer answers by providing some encyclopedic notions.

In the dialogue imperative prevails on other tenses: use of imperative does not imply answers and creates a fixed order. This reflects Victorian need of rationality linked to industrial society way of thinking.

In conclusion this extract provides a good example of education during Victorian Age. Utilitarianism conception of education implies a complete formation of students in order to create a generation of perfect obedient workers.