MR. BOUNDERBY
Charles Dickens, Hard Times

In the extract taken from chapter four, the narrator gives information about Mr Bounderby, a rich man deprived of sentiment who works in the commercial sector. Charles Dickens uses the technique of the grotesque in order to make a parody of him and provoke laughter.
The extract opens with a question by which the reader immediately understand that Mr Grundy and Mr Bounderby are completely different and that they haven't got any kind of friendly relationship .
In the second sequence the narrator describes Mr Bounderby , firstly focusing on his economic situation: he was a rich man, and then focusing on his characteristics. His stare and his laugh are compared to metal, so that the idea the reader makes on him is that of a strong and authoritarian person. On the contrary, in describing his consistence, the novelist wrote that he was made out of a coarse material, whose quantity seemed not sufficient for his creation. By this allusion the reader immediately understand that he is not a consistent person; this opinion is reinforced going on reading by the adjective "puffed" referred to his head and by the image of the balloon.
It is impossible to consider him a self-made man, even if he never stopped to vaunt he was.
The third sequence provides the reader some information about Mr Bounderby age and appearance and makes the reader understand that his friendship with Mr Grundy was only practical and related to an utilitarian aspect. It underlines again his boast too.
In the fourth sequence the situation is introduced : he is standing in an elegant drawning-room of Stone Lodge with Mrs Gradgring, to whom is delivering some considerations about his birthday.
In the last sequences Mr Bounderby is in a house called Stone Lodge together with Mrs Gradgrind and tells her about his childhood and the difficoulties he had to face and he is proud of what he has achieved on his own. In this way his life represents the parabola of progress praised by Calvinism and Puritanism.
Therefore, the presence of the social classes, and the difference between them is made clear by the position the two characters have in the room, which is of predominance of the higher class component.