"MR. BOUNDERBY" – Analysis

The function of the first sentence is to involve the reader and make him taking part in the novel. In addition, the reader makes expectation to answer the initial question.

The second sentence provides the reader a comparison between Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgring, both of them as men "perfectly devoid of sentiment": the analogy between these two characters seems to make closer their relationship, but to tell the thruth they are totally different, with sarcasm.

Mr. Bounderby is a successful capitalist who made himself through hard work as "banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not".

His description is made by the third omniscient narrator who lead the reader, leaving him with no liberty of suggestion. The name, nevertheless, refers to his capacity to be a parasite of poor people who worked for him (bounder + by).

He brags about having grown up an orphan, and he demonizes his old status. Thus, Mr. Bounderby's mentality is in line with the Victorian Age and the Puritanism and the parable of the talents: who doesn't exploit their talents, or otherwise money, is damned; during the Victorian Age, poors were always in danger to become even poorer, and rich people were always looking for salvation and to avoid poverty, and thus damnation.

Mr. Bounderby is portrayed as a fat and rich man made of "coarse" material, with a "metallic laugh": the two objectives refer to industrialized world and society: this reflects the superficial values people believed, transforming people into
objects with no emotion or sensation. In addition, his voice is defined as "brassy speaking-trumpet": the metaphor is
underlined what the narrator wrote before, that is the flattening of this character. The overall effect of the description conveys the grotesque used: Mr. Bounderby looks like a monster, with no emotion; the final caricature gives the reader the "alibi" the middle class' conscience needed.

In the following paragraph, Mr. Bounderby's predominance on Mrs. Gradgrind's submissive position "before the fire". This event underlines the power of selfishness of the main character and the reader doesn't empathised with the character, a monster of that genre.

In the sixth paragraph, the narration focuses the attention from Mr. Bounderby to Mrs. Gradgrind: she is weak both phisically and mentally ("of surpassing feebleness"), so this characterization is functional to make Mr. Bounderby strong and overbearing, coherent to the description made before, with the exaggeration of tones and hyperboles, ready to picture him as a monster.

In the last, but not least, paragraphs the narrator provides information on the main character through an exchange of the dialogue made by the character himself: he doesn't accept his origins and tries to forget it, but all he does is moaning for what he did in order to become what he is now. The hyperbole the narrator uses is functional to the caricature and the effect of the grotesque. Finally, Mr. Bounderby put his mask off and shows a partial and true characterization: he is so selfish who looks everybody from the top of his sense of superiority.

In the end, the novel doesn't really beat around the bush with this character: Bounderby is awful. He is loud, obnoxious, completely self-centered, and the novel's most snobby and status-obsessed character.