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

“Mr. Gradgrind's bosom friend/ perfectly devoid of sentiment/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, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him/ 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/Mr. Bounderby looked older; his seven or eight and forty/He had not much hair.”

2-3.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.

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.

-          “[…] which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him.”

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

(inflated balloon)

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

(swollen head)

-          “A man who was the Bully of humility”

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 (= canaglia/mascalzone) -  “A man who was the Bully of humility”

5.Mr. Bounderby is described as coming from a poor family, without , 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?

In this case Mr.Bounderby uses his difficult childhood in order to praise himself. So his epopee seems to be a pretext to talk about his greatness.

6.Now go on reading and see if what Bounderby says is consistent with the description of

his character.

Mr.Bounderby’s words are the opposite of Mr.Dickens’ description about him. Indeed Mr.Bounderby’s narration of his childhood let the reader think he is sympathetic, humble.Instead the novelist’s description portrays him as a “Bully of humility”, “swollen head”.

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

In the first part of the dialogue with Mrs.Gradgrind he emphasizes his poverty:  first words he told are “I hadn’t a shoe to my foot”.

On the other hand, at the end of the dialogue it is possible to understand that emphasis put on his poverty is only a pretext to put the focus on his ability to become rich and important.

9.Consider the way Bounderby speaks.

a) Underline any repetition of pronouns, words or sentence pattern in the extract

you have read .

b) How would you define his way of talking

c) How does his way of talking fit in with his character as described by the

narrator?

-          I / I was / ditch / so / inflammation

-          It is an egocentric way of talking: the focus is only on the “I”. Besides the repetition of “so” before the adjectives conveys Mr.Bounderby’s tendency to exaggerate his experiences.

-          This is the technique of the grotesque: narrator uses an anaphoric structure, “A mano who [...]”, to  stresses some aspects of the character and so, better characterizing it.

Furthermore, the anaphoric structure is used, in perfect symmetry with narrator’s words, in Mr.bounderby’s dialogue creating the grotesque.