Notes about the Extract Mr Bounderby from Hard Times (18/5/12)

The extract is taken from the fourth chapter of C. Dickens' novel Hard Times. The main character of the extract is Mr Bounderby, the example of the self-made man figure.
The extract starts with a question the narrator makes to the reader: in this way he creates a dialogue with the reader. The narrator creates here a parallelism between Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby, using also an anaphorical structure. The narrator says they have a similar personality, underlining they have not sentiment. Passion, feelings and creativity are totally abandoned in this period, as Utilitarianism trend states.
The narrator uses categories to present Mr Bounderby and he defines him with a list of works he made. Then he presents the features of the character: he is a big loud man, with a strained metallic laugh. The first impression the reader has is that it is impossibile to ignore him. The narrator uses here grotesque, reshaping the whole character or part of his body and promoting reader's laugh. Modifying the physical aspect of Mr Bounderby, he makes a caricature and makes him appear as a mask. This makes the reader understand there is not only realism in the Victorian novels: novelists uses conventions to show reality in the novel and in this way they give the reader the tools to understand there is a part of reality in the text.
The narrator uses many similes to present Mr Bounderby (for example "like a balloon") and besides them the overall effect is that created by the metaphorical and grotesque use of language.
The narrator says that Mr Bounderby repeats obsessivily he is a self-made man: he "proclaims" it and announces it as if it were something important for everyone. He underlines the present condition compared with the past one: here the pathetic aspect emerges with throughout irony (to state something denying it).
Mr Bounderby proclaims his old ignorance and poverty: it is a reference to Puritanism idea of progress of the person. Moreover the narrator defines him the "Bully of Humility": his fragility emerges here because a bully is nothing without his group. The pathetic aspect emerges again throughout the use of language.
In the second part of the extract the narrator says Mr Bounderby is younger than his friends, but that he seems older than them: he does not care his look and reading about his physical aspect the reader understands he is not attractive.
In the third part the narrator shifts to a space. The scene is set in Stone Lodge: the name of the house recalls a stony place, that neither the sun is able to warm. Mr Bounderby is talking with a woman: the narrator says he is "delivering" some observations, as if he were delivering a packet or a present. Mr Bounderby is trying to obtain woman's compassion telling her about his poor childhood, but also her admiration telling her about his progress in society. The woman is Mrs Gradgrind, the prototype of the woman in the Victorian Age.