THE DEFINITION OF A HORSE

This is an extract from Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times.

It is taken from the second chapter called Murdering Innocents.

In the extract the scene is takes place in a classroom.

In the first paragraph Dickens presents the figure of Thomas Gradgrin, a rigid teacher who has decided to establish a school in the industrial city of Coketown.

The reader can see that all the sentences are short and marked . He wants to give us the idea of Gradgrind’s personality: he is a square man. The teacher is the typical middle class character of the Victorian Age.

The extract suggest reflection about condition and education in Great Britain at that time.

Dickens choices make the reader laugh.

Once again Dickens focuses on the main ideology of the Victorian Age: time is money and you have to do everything to get the biggest profit. In Victorian Age there are no more emotions and sensibility, all is rigid. The noun “sir” wants to underline the difference between the two social classes . The teacher use a high register while Sissy Jupe an informal.

With the sentence “Girl number twenty” Dickens underlines once again the social difference between two opposite classes. The young girl , who seems a new student, doesn’t even have a name and she will be called “Girl number twenty” till the end of the story. Questions and answers are with no feelings. Pathos and Grotesque are well used in this paragraph because the reader feels sorry and emphatic with the young girl but at the same time feels less evil compared to the teacher. This technique creates an alibi for the Middle class but also denounces the inappropriate and unjust behaviour of powerful people.

The novelist denounces the compromise of Victorian Age and the contradictions of the period; while the whole population was suffering because of the bad living conditions provided by the Industrial Revolution, Middle class pretended to live a perfect life and respect.