HARD TIMES - Murdering the Innocents

Right from the start the extract underlines name and surname of the protagonist, probably he was known in Coketown. He is Thomas Gradgrind and he is defined as a man of realities, a man of fact and calculation. Right from the start of the section the incremental repetition underlines the importance of such characteristics that probably characterize the protagonist. The repetition of the same thing in different languages creates a climax.

The impression that the reader gets from reading the extract is that somebody is talking to somebody else. The telling technique does not leave any freedom to the reader who can adopt only two opinions about Mr Gradgrind: he or she can refuse the narrator's point of view or accept it. The narrator is a 3^rd person omniscient and intrusive narrator.

The intelligent reader can easily understand that the innocents are children. In particular in the present extract it is interesting to notice the conversation between a girl and Mr Gradgrind. In the section, like in all Victorian novels, children are seen from the point of view of adults. In the present situation Mr Gradgrind represents the adults' point of view and he considers Sissy as a number. The decision to underline such attitude is not a case. To tell the truth Charles Dickens wants to express a critic to the influential philosophies of Victorianism. The protagonist cannot imagine that addressing a person he could use a nickname. People are expected to conform to form.

It is clear that the description of Mr Gradgrind is a caricature, a portrait of a character that must be the result of the Victorian way of thinking. Such exaggeration works as an alibi that it is useful to protect people because there is no a total identification with characters.

It is interesting to notice that Mr Gradgrind uses the imperative and in other occasions he negate children's identity. For example when he says that Sissy is not a name.

In order to make Mr Gradgrind ridiculous the narrator use many epithets which are full od significance for English readers.