Activities on Mr. Bounderby

1. List all the words and phrases describing Mr. Bounderby

The narrator tells him as:

- A man perfectly devoid of sentiment

- He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not.

- A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh.

- A man made out of a coarse material

- A man with a great  puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up.

- A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start.

- A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man.

- A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty.

- A man who was the Bully of humility.

- He had not much air, all standing up in disorder

- His windy boastfulness

He tells himself as:

- I was one of the most miserable little wretches ever seen.

- I was so sickly, that I was always moaning and groaning.

- I was so ragged and dirty, that you wouldn't have touched me with a pair of tongs.

- I was determined. I have been a determined character in later life, and I suppose I was then.

- Nobody to thank for my being here, but myself.

2. Collect the 4 phrases which explicitly convey the narrator’s opinion of Mr. Bounderby’s character and find in a dictionary adjectives of the same meaning.

a) A man perfectly devoid of sentiment = mean, cruel, unfeeling

b) A man who was the Bully of humility = superb, proud, haughty, arrogant, uppish

c) Boastfulness = to brag, to crow, to vaunt

d) A man who was always proclaiming his old ignorance and his old poverty. = Utilitarian and Puritan

3. Now go back to the list you made for exercise 1. which of the other items on it are connected with one or more of the author’s comments.

I think that all the characterization is connected to the author’s comment, apart from Mr Bounderby’s self-presentation, even if it’s used to comment even on it. The author uses the old man physic to connote him negatively. For instance, his visible veins on his forehead shows his efforts and great labor to be what he’s. But his position isn’t considered as a great one.

4. The surname of the character contains the word bounder on purpose . Look it up in the dictionary. Which of the phrases you have listed reinforces the meaning of the surname?

Bounder definition: a man who behaves badly or in a way that is not moral especially in his relationships with women

I didn’t posed any sentences linked to it. But it comes out in his dialogue with Mrs. Gradgrind. Indeed he shows himself as self-made man who begins from the lowest level of society. And his behavior shows his feeling superior next to her. Indeed, after he makes the example of tongs, that is an instrument very far from the women.

5. Mr. Bounderby is described as coming from a poor family, without education and self-made. In other contexts these attributes might be presented as worthy of sympathy and/or admiration. Why aren’t they here?

Because the characters uses them for vaunt himself, for a praise. Usually, someone who comes from the lowest part of society should be humble and modest, but he’s not like that. So, the reader feels this Mr Bounderby’s piece of his history as exaggerated, like a lie. Another reason for his behave could be that he felt so bad when he was young due to his poverty. So now, he needs to govern, to be the one. And rising the social ladder to the top, he feels like God. But, if this were the reason, he wouldn’t talk about his past because he would have preferred to remove it.

7. Which aspect/s of Bounderby’s character is/are emphasized in what he says?

I think his tendence to be the victim. Indeed, his childhood and his tenth birthday because he appears as the lowest child in the world, that is the poorest. But if he had really felt poverty on his self he wouldn’t have behaved in that superior way.

8. Does what he says confirm or modify his portrait in the previous text?

It confirms his portrait at all.

9. Consider the way Bounderby speaks.

a) Underline any repetition of pronouns, words or sentence pattern in the extract you have read .

- “I” is repeated ten times, like the number of his birthday he was speaking about

- The repetition of the negative form

- “Ditch; inflammation; foot”

- Exaggerations like “the most of”, “Always”, “So”

b) How would you define his way of talking

This is a vaunting way of talking, focusing on the speaker’s experience. In particular it stresses the difficulty and the labor of the man who’s talking. Therefore a way of talking pointed in underling the speaker and his experiences and his figure.

c) How does his way of talking fit in with his character as described by the narrator?
The narrator describes him as one who’s unable to not talk about himself and his being a self-made man