Re: Hard Times

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Fri, 27 Jun 1997 11:48:16 -0100 

My Dear Mr Lee,

  You wonder about my view of the roles of different social classes.
Different classes, to be sure, perform different tasks in any society, but I
have always believed that the duties and responsibilites all men and women
have in common are more important than those they divide between them.  In
my book "Bleak House," Sir Leicester Dedlock leads society, Mr Rouncewell
manufactures commodities out of iron, and poor Jo sweeps his crossing.  The
differences could not be greater.  But, despite failings of understanding
and purpose, each is honourable and responsible, each seeks to do his duty,
each stands by those to whom he is indebted.  That is more important.
  Likewise, Mr Tulkinghorn pursues his legal avocation, Mr Skimpole
cultivates the arts, and Mr Krook minds his marine stores establishment.
And each seeks his own ends at the expense of others.  Need I say more?
  Mr Carlyle denounced the mechanistic view of man and society.  I was proud
to add my voice to his.  May I suggest you look at my story "Hard Times"?
In it, I try to show how the children of Mr Gradgrind, Louisa and Tom, are
afflicted by their father's mechanistic views, the mechanistic education he
bestows upon them.  Cissy Jupe, on the other hand, a child of the circus, is
redeemed, and redeems, by the dues she pays to fancy and feeling.
  Your teachers ask much of you when they ask you to assess my view of the
social and environmental conditions of nineteenth-century England!  It is
something I can scarcely do myself, except by pointing to my published works
and imploring, "Behold!"  All I can tell you is that, throughout my career,
I strove to expose and denounce what I saw and felt to be wrong in my
country: the debtors' prison of "Pickwick," the workhouse of "Oliver Twist,"
the Yorkshire Schools of "Nicholas Nickleby," the legal tangles of "Bleak
House," the prevaricating and incompetent bureaucracy of "Little Dorrit."


Faithfully yours,



Charles Dickens

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author