Murdering the innocents
Charles Dickens sets the novel in one of the industrial towns, he emphasizes the dehumanizing aspects on the Industrial Revolution, and calls into question the influential philosophy of Utilitarianism, which relied heavily on statistics, rules and regulations, and did not at all highly value individualism and imagination, they are confined. The extract belongs to the second chapter of Hard Times. There is a third person narrator, omniscient and intrusive. The character portrayed is Mr Grandgrid. Right from the start he underlines name and surname as if an important person, set in Coketown. There is an anaphoric use of syntax, because of the repetition of structure incrementing the repetition, he wants to underline the objects: facts, calculations.
The idea the reader gets is that somebody is talking to somebody. There is the telling technique which does not live any freedom to the reader who can adopt 2 way of thinking: accept or refuse the point of view of Mr Grandgrid. He is a mixture of rules, and seems to need those elements as if they are useful to survive. As a result he has a categorical view of the world.
With an ironic way, the narrator tells the reader that definitely there is no space for any other perspective, but the factional pr mathematical one. The tone id highly ironical, based on repetition, anaphoric sentences, same things are expressed by the use of climax. Proper names: common ordinary names, but the narrator embeds, adding adjectives, it shows a real contrast between what is true and Utilitarian minds. The way of thinking of Victorians shifted between two poles ( Manichean philosophy).
The second part is told through the showing technique, using the dialogue, the reader can see, hear.
There are two characters : adult, and child :they are always or generally seen of the point of view of adults, or sometimes of children and children's feeling. Mr Grangrind doesn't accept the way of conceiving the world of Sissy, she comes from a distant context, a context different from Mr Grangrid. From his point of view, Sissy is a number, this shows the mathematical frame of mind of Utilitarianism. Everything should conform to form people expected to. He has been come a caricature, has to be the mouth speaker of Utilitarianism, it's an exaggerate result, with an hyperbolical rendering, he is transformed in a caricature. This alibi works to protect people, the hyperbolic rendering does not allow total identification with the character.
that : it implies distance, number twenty is a child, a student, human being, but by choosing a number , it shows how Mr Grangrid has a mathematical mind, and doesn't see them as people, as a identity, otherwise they're not considered : negation of the identity. This man doesn't seem to know, he doesn't listen, he gives rules, what is right and what is wrong, he doesn't interact. The use of adjectives expresses girls mood, compelled to be deferent.
Business : he becomes the director of the world, not only of his family. In the end the climax shows how things cannot last for goods