Mr Bounderby - analysis

The extract from "Hard Times" provides the characterization of a typical Middle class man, a self-made man. At first characterization concerns the character's personality: devoid of sentiment is a narrator's judgement that underlines his tendency to materiality and to richness; success is his aim and criterion for actions while morals or emotions are not considered. The repetition of the expression emphasizes the character's cruelty and utilitarian ideology. However the narrator puts a doubt on it (so near or so far off); his attitude con be interpreted and judged differently according to one's mentality: of the reader is similar to him he wouldn't consider Mr Bounderby void of sentiment, while a reader from lower classes would agree with the narrator.

The first category is an economic-social one: the narrator creates a climatic order -with alliterative sounds- that finishes with a sort of void (what not), that is an irony to ridicule the character. The narrator wants to put his economic frenzy and his excessive aspiration into evidence: the aim is to denounce Middle Class attitude not to be satisfied but to look always for further improvement.

The following physical category is a concrete image to convey his arrogance and bossy behaviour; the narrator resorts to the language of sense impression appealing both to sight and to hearing: in particular he creates a sinestesia because he transfers a sound adjective (loud) to his body (big ,loud man) to express his great body mass and his mighty voice.

The narrator insists on the phonological level by describing the character's laughter: metallic creates a strong relationship between the man and his job (industrial production), reveals he is totally engaged in his activity that he transforms himself into a manufactured losing his human attributes; associated to industrial concepts (metallic, coarse material, stretched) Mr Bounderby seems to lack humanity and to be a machine: dickens maintained that industrialization provoked the loss of human nature.

The attention to Mr Bounderby's voice reveals the noise he provokes: he is intrusive, egocentric and vain; the adjective coarse signals he hasn't got good manners.

His physical description concerns also his face: great puffed, swelled, strained exaggerate some details creating the grotesque; he is not relaxed but always concentrated in observing commercial interests. The image of his head overcomes his body making him grotesque; the following simile clears his appearance up: vanity, sense of superiority and excessive self-confidence.

The description goes on in a climatic way, the narrator is making his attitude more and more explicit form the allegorical level to the direct one: now the reader is revealed Mr Bounderby's arrogance.

Reader's attention is put on the reason why Mr Bounderby vaunts himself: he is a self-made man. The Victorian cultural code exalted one's hard work and ability in improving his own condition: the figure of the self-made man was the model for the Middle class.

The character's satisfaction becomes perceivable on a phonic level: the previous interest in his voice is now comprehensible and clearly connected to his vanity. The verb proclaiming is a hyperbole: he seems to be a politician while he is a merchant who makes his experience extraordinary; his attitude appears demagogical aimed to guide people to him.

At Mr Bounderby' s apogee the narrator gives a moral judgement: the noun poverty can't be considered on a material level but on a spiritual one. The narrator doesn't share the character's perspective but criticizes him revealing his superficiality. The sequence ends with an ironic expression (humility). The anaphor a man reveals Mr Bounderby isn't only an individual: he also represents a type, an example of the Middle class.

In the second sequence (form line 20) Mr B. addresses Mrs Gradgrind.

In describing his past poor condition he exaggerates his misery; the novelist uses the grotesque to render the underworld of poverty and damnation. After referring to his dressing, Mr Bounderby explains where he lived: the repetition of the word ditch is a device to reinforce the reader's sense of horror and pity.

In addition to this, also his health condition is exaggerated: the idea of a cold is substituted with that of an inflammation: the repetition of the word is accompanied by the climax of the lungs and of everything else.

Mr Bounderby' s aim is to exalt his ability to rise in the social leather.