Imani was quick to fire back, accusing him of lying. Your email address will not be published. It is only after Louisa's emotional breakdown that he has a change of heart and becomes more intellectually accepting of enterprises that are not exclusively dedicated to profit and fact. in Baird 403). Removing #book# She even extends a compassionate helping hand to Stephen's drunken wife, whom she has known since they both worked together as girls. Being forced to endure an unhappy marriage means that Stephen can never enjoy happiness with Rachel, his long-time friend. his daily toil, Stephen strives to maintain his honesty, integrity, faith, WebStephen Blackpool. In practice, these scenes proved so popular (especially when they featured children dying for instance Nell in Little Nell and Jo the street sweeper in Bleak House) that fans would write Dickens letters asking for more of the same.In this novel, the honor falls to Stephen, who is set up for it almost from the very beginning (that's why he is introduced as a man of "perfect integrity"). Such insensitivity towards his mother is unbecoming and cannot be spared. He has been married nineteen years to a drunken wife and would like to divorce her, but Bounderby tells him he will not be able to afford a divorce. Stephens name is taken off Bounderbys bank list as a result of his robbery. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. Dickens could have researched a bunch of facts about how badly factories treated their workers. As Dickens character demonstrates, he is as pure of a Christian as Piers Ploughman from the medieval era or Saint Stephen from the modern era. The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled. It is quite evident here, after analysing the characters of both, Stephen and Bounderby, that Dickens pleads more the case of Stephen as he is a real victim despite being honest. In terms of characterization and representation, he is an example of how working people lived in Victorian era, and we may be able to see several social issues. He reveals with a proud air: I had not a shoe to my foot. The party was a weed fest, according to Barnes. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments or would like any additional information. from a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds (83). and employees, and he also wants to earn an honest living. but also the happiness and tranquility that is lacking in his troubled Despite the fact that the thorn symbolism is rather heavy-handed, we admire Stephens dedication to his work. You can view our. Perhaps the object of his miserable existence will be taken; although frightened at his thoughts, he cannot act as the distraught woman pours from the bottle. 2023 Collaborative Practice Toronto. His ultimate misdeed comes when he steals money from his safe in the bank and then announces the loss as a true theft. In his Frederick Clifford provides an example of a Victorian woman Mrs. Dawson who won her case in the Ecclesiastical Court as her husband would flog her but the House of Lords rejected her Bill on six occasions (qtd. She would drink four teens in breakfast. She accepts Bounderby's proposal largely to please her brother, Tom, whom she loves. Bounderby is all like "well, marriage is forever, for better or worse." She is a member of the distinguished Powler family, but when she was young she made a disastrous marriage and since then has come down in the world. to start your free trial of SparkNotes Plus. However, he has been hesitant to do so because he knows that it would be very difficult for him to get custody of their children. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. What does Stephen mean? Dickens satirizes the Industrial Revolution as he likens the roaring furnace to Fairy Palaces and the factories to elephants from which belch forth the serpents of death-giving smoke. After providing for Sissy at the beginning of the novel he assists Tom's escape at the novel's end. This episode is particularly important to understand not only the predicament of Stephen but also to scrutinise the Victorian laws of divorce and remarriage. In the factory that Bounderby owns, Stephen Blackpool and his friend Rachael are work hands. The bride looked stunning in her white dress with a plunging neckline and mermaid silhouette complete with a long cloud-like train while the groom was dapper in his suit from Miguel Wilson Collection. As a child she is imaginative and reflective, but these qualities are stifled by the restrictive education she receives. 13 Feb. 2016. anthony dawson milford high school; plato quotes on leadership; secondary consumer in a food web Project Muse. $24.99 that illustrates the strained relations between rich and poor. Stephen Blackpool can secure divorce as he has all the necessary grounds. We see this when Stephen comes to ask Bounderby how to ditch his wife. According to Stephen in a podcast chat last year, he and then-fiancee agreed on the prenup months before the wedding but she kept holding off when he asked her to sign it. The roses of life, whether rooted in a happy marriage, a faithful family, a satisfying job, or a life of fruitful works, have all been denied to Stephen. Rachel protects Stephen's wife until the end of her life. Rachael, with unflinching faith in the virtue of Stephen, pleads for his innocence : The masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin [sic] to work hard in peace and do what he felt right. Are the two so deeply separated in this town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between them (162)? It looks like the novel may just be using marriage to show us yet another disparity between the rich and the poor. Why do you think he makes Stephen, who seems to be the worker hero of this novel, refuse to unionize? At the end of the novel, Dickens writes that Sissy grows ever more happy and she eventually has children of her own to care for. Apart from it, the case of Josiah Bounderby and Louisa would also be considered to highlight how even the rich in some circumstances could not have procured divorce. Hard Times. He claims that his mother abandoned him, but it later turns out that he simply made this story up. But the law does not permit him to marry another without divorcing the first. WebShe periodically returns to Coketown to haunt Stephen and is, as he sees it, the sole barrier to the happiness he might have had in marrying Rachael. So much so, in fact, that he is willing to not join the union like the rest of the workers. Free trial is available to new customers only. Tom is also referred to as "the whelp." As to his personal life, it goes without saying that he was unhappy because Stephens wife left him and chose to be the night butterfly but not his spouse. Until 30 October 1998 when they were murdered at their home by Stephen Akinmurele at their home, 2 Seafield Avenue, North Shore. The latter opines: You would have to go to Doctors Commons with a suit, and youd have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and youd have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and youd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you . You can identify a sacrifice when someone pure, good, noble, and unbelievably innocent is needlessly killed off. This you would get as a matter of course, on the payment of the proper fees and proof of the facts. and any corresponding bookmarks? Martha Nussbaum on Dickenss Hard Times. Philosophy and Literature 33.2 (2009): 414-427. Josiah Bounderbys marriage to Louisa also ends similarly. WebHe is married to a drunk woman who wanders in and out of his life. Moreover, the way he is implicated by young Tom in the bank robbery invites the sympathy of the readers. Thereafter the matter was examined by the House of Commons and then finally a Private Act of Parliament was to be enacted to enable the divorcee the luxury of a second marriage. Stephen Blackpool is introduced after we have met the Blind in his vanity, he undermines his friendship in the first place and secondly, fails to view the incompatibility between him and his wife in terms of mammoth age difference and the lack of commensuration in dispositions. Bettys drinking has led to her being abusive to Stephen, both verbally and physically. Web. Stephen is a very prominent first name for males (#34 out of 1220, Top 3%) and also a very prominent last name for both adults and children (#3655 out of 150436, Top 2%). As the night lengthens, Stephen falls into a troubled sleep and is wakened just in time to see his wife reach for one of the bottles of antiseptic. He was eventually forced to leave his job and became a beggar. Stephen agrees to accept only two pounds, promising to pay back the two pounds after hearing his deep emotions. 1953. She is the eldest of the Gradgrind children and the prize pupil of the educational system. Wed love to have you back! After losing his job at the factory, Stephen is forced to leave Coketown and find work elsewhere. But Rachael awakens and seizes the deadly cup. He rues how his mother left him with his grandmother who would treat him most cruelly and would even sell his tattered shoes to drink. He has been very well trained and is very knowledgeable, but his teaching method is to cram his students full of facts. He is rescued but dies soon after. ), king of England from 1135 to 1154. 2023 Shmoop University Inc | All Rights Reserved | Privacy | Legal. from your Reading List will also remove any Capturing the northwest & beyond. WebStephen Blackpool is introduced after we have met the Gradgrind family and Bounderby, and Blackpool provides a stark contrast to these earlier characters. When her father deserts her, Sissy is taken in by Gradgrind, but Sissy does not excel at Gradgrind's school. Stephen would much rather be with Rachael but what he learns from Bounderby is that any sort of annulment or divorce or separation from the drunk woman is going to cost a good deal of moneyfar more than Stephen will ever have. When he realizes that the object of his misery has re-entered his life, he sinks into despair; tied to this disreputable creature, he can never marry Rachael. js photo studios. He also prides himself on being a self-made man, and never ceases to puff himself up with false humility about his deprived childhood and the poverty he endured when he was young. Rachel is Stephens childhood friend and a factory worker. He is wrongly suspected of committing a bank robbery. Truth in Hard Times and Howard's End. The law was partisan and prejudiced against women as Sir William Blackstone reveals in his Commentary on the Laws of England (1765-1769) that the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during her marriage, or at least is incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything (443). Her marriage with Mr. Bounderby is soon dissolved and she never remarries. Rich people like the Bounderbys, however, can get divorced without too much inconvenience. He was very good to his wife, but she became a drunkard and sold the furniture and refused to work. Required fields are marked *. The younger children of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind. It is he who at the end implicates Stephen in a bank robbery and also reveals all the secrets of his sister to James Harthouse to indulge in his vices. He deprives his mother of her motherly affection for all these years by simply giving her money. In this chapter, the seeds of Stephen's discontent are revealed when he returns to his lonely apartment after walking his beloved Rachael home and finds that his drunken wife has returned. 'This what I told her, 'What motives you on?!' Stephen is a power loom operator in Bounderby's factory. Mr. Bounderby is one of the central characters of the novel. . "We smoked before and after," so he spilled the tea to TMZ. on 2-49 accounts, Save 30% Stephen's only way out of his marriage is death (either his or his wife's). Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. | Please help me out with an answer, which could be equivalent to 10 marks. SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. We're sorry, SparkNotes Plus isn't available in your country. By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy. "Ask about us. Please check back weekly to see what we have added. Print. Eric ran boat trips from Blackpool in the sixties and when they met again they were soon married and lived happily for twenty seven years. Tom Gradgrind Tom Gradgrind is Thomas Gradgrind's son. hard facts of his miserable existence. In spite of the powerful factory owners, Stephen Blackpool refused to give up. Josiah Bounderby Josiah Bounderby is a rich banker, merchant and manufacturer, and one of Coketown's most prominent citizens. John D Baird analyses the Victorian laws regarding divorce and says how the process and the expenses involved could not be borne by the poor. James Harthouse James Harthouse is a young upper class gentlemen who, bored by his life of pleasure and adventure, attaches himself to Thomas Gradgrind and the "hard facts" school in parliament. Throughout the novel, Bounderby is an emblem of hypocrisy. He was also "full of Gods grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people" ( Acts 6:8 ). Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan! The death of this kind of character (here, he is killed by falling into a dangerous hole in the ground left unmarked by an uncaring factory owner) is good a way to make a point without having to make an argument. The ex-basketballer twinned with his groomsmen in the designer outfits. In the end, Tom is forced to flee the country to escape punishment. His love for Rachael is pure and deep: not a tone of her voice but an echo in his inner heart (1xi), and he seeks a law to assist him in divorce, but is told by a court that the law is not for you. Web. Can a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own (247)? Stephen does so, but no help arrives. Hard Times literature essays are academic essays for citation. JSTOR. backstabbing way. Perhaps that may be so. Not much is known about Saint Stephen's origin. As a decent gesture, Stephen looked for a way to provide for her without being attached to her lifestyle. He employs many of the characters in the novel and he is very wealthy. Dickens shows the adverse effects of Utilitarianism on education as well as labour in Hard Times to critique this policy which focussed on the greatest happiness for the greatest number (Abrams 1839). On top of all that, he dies a pretty crazy slow death at the bottom of a hole in the ground. He opines that while divorce could be attained on grounds of cruelty and adultery, to achieve one was not, all the while, easy: Whereas women could and frequently did win divorce from adulterous husbands in the ecclesiastical courts, the House of Lords steadfastly refused to pass a divorce act in favour of a wife on the ground of her husbands adultery alone. . (2000 U.S. CENSUS) Stephen reached its top position of #20 in the Even though he has been married for many years, his wife had left him long ago. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty. Entitled "Stephen Blackpool," "No Way Out," "The Old Woman," and "Rachael," they are chapters of character representation, of Dickens' philosophy, and of symbolism. Sleary's philosophy is the opposite of Gradgrind's. Thats the way I spent my tenth birthday. to these earlier characters. Not affiliated with Harvard College. "We don't return Tux it's also a gift to my guys," he wrote. He dies overseas and full of regret. Stephen Blackpool is one of the Hands, and he is unhappily married to an alcoholic who reappears in his life unexpectedly. He is a business acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind. He is not by nature an unkind man, and he resolves in future to live by the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. him away. Stephen, a worker in the industrial town of Blackpool, is employed there. Commentaries on the Law of England in Four Books Vol. Print. lives a life of drudgery and poverty. Since Thomas Gradgrind does not allow his children to indulge in fancy, Lousia becomes apathetic and is pushed by her father to marry his friend Josiah Bounderby who is more than twice her age. Stephen Blackpool Stephen Blackpool is a factory hand at the mill in Coketown. It is worth noting that Stephen was acquainted with Tom Gradgrind who was on the position in the company and, later on, robbed the Bank.
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