The extract is taken from Dickens' novel Hard Times, chapter 4. It deals with Mr. Bounderby, Mr. Gradgrind's closest friend.

Mr. Bounderby is introduced as Mr. Gradgrind's “bosom friend”. Their friendship is a “spiritual relation” built on “devotion of sentiment”. The statement is repetitive and suggest the boring and redundant nature of the two men. Such relation sounds odd and strange to the reader who may think that true friendship should be made of different and deeper values. The third person omniscient narrator says that the distance between the two men could be denoted as “far” “if the reader should prefer it”. This narrative strategy makes the reader play an active part in the narration.

The second paragraph has the function to characterize Mr. Bounderby: he is a rich, loud and obese man. Mr. Bounderby is a grotesque character, ludicrously odd and connoted as a deformed man. The effect of the grotesque is obtained by the anaphoric repetition of “a man” which focuses the attention on the physical features of Mr. Bounderby: he is denoted as a coarse and stretched material, inflated like a balloon, with strained skin. The man has no human features and seems like a degraded figure. The anaphoric repetition goes on for several lines annoying the reader as Bounderby's trumpet-like voice would do. The conclusive sentence of the paragraph describes him as “the Bully of humility”. This connotation underlines how much he uses to “vaunt himself a self made man”: the grotesque increases in effect comparing Mr. Bounderby'sextravagant self-praise and his physical appearance. The anaphoric structure of this sequence could be compared to the introductory sequence of “murdering the innocents” where Thomas Gradgrind's ironic characterization is conveyed by the same figure of speech. The name “Bounderby” itself ironically recalls words like “round” or “bounce” making fun of the man on the level of sound.

The third paragraph keeps on characterizing the man who looks older than his younger friend: he has “not much hair” and the few he still hasare constantly “blown about” by hte ostentatious display of his extraordinary abilities. The synaesthesia between “windy” and “boastfulness” gives strength to the odd characterization: not even the senses can fully characterize such a strange and grotesque man.

The following paragraph consist in a description of the place in which the two man are talking. The room is a “formal drawing-room”. The adjective “formal” refers both to the hall of the Stone Lodge and to the formality the two man keep on displaying with obstinacy. The narrator characterizes the hall using a high and rhetoric language referring to humidity as a “ghost” who haunts the “damp mortar”.Mr. Bounderby's insecurity is shown as he looks for a “commanding position” against Mrs. Gradgrind in front of the fireplace: he is as filthy as the humid walls, trying to look formal but actually showing his fear to loose possession of the situation. As a consequence he is always looking for a way to submit the others. There is actually no need to keep a commanding position over the woman who is surprisingly feeble both mentally and bodily. She is a pathetic character, weak and gentle.

The second half of the extract consists in a reported speech of Mr. Bounderby who recalls his young life. He describes himself as a poor and ignorant child who “was born in a ditch”. Such “ditch” was, regardless of Mrs. Gradgrind hopes, “as wet as a sop”. Ironically the hole in which he used to live was as humid and wet as the hall in which he is now talking with his friend.

The last two paragraphs deal with Mrs. Gradgrind “imbecility” and Mr. Bounderby determination. The woman is pathetically looking at the tongs the man referred to using a metaphor. The man is praising himself for his determination: he says he needs to tank nobody but himself. The woman's imbecility sounds pathetic: the bad characterization makes the reader feels sorry and empathize her poor condition. On the other and the proud man sounds arrogant and can only be depreciated by the reader.