Re: Hard Times

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:59:30 -0100 

My dear Sir,

  Your question makes me pause and reflect on my own career, as well as on
my own times.  Do you know my book "Nicholas Nickleby," as well as "Hard
Times"?  Never mind if not.  You can look up the plot in a good reference
work and read it later.
  I ask because I was much concerned in "Nicholas Nickleby" with matters of
money and work, with political economy as the philosophers say.  Consider
the careers of Nicholas and his sister Kate.  Each works for a living,
during the course of the novel, but each works almost exclusively for
families.  Nicholas works for Mr Squeers and his family at Dotheboys Hall,
for Mr Crummles and his family in the Crummles touring theatre company, and
for the Cheeryble brothers in their trading house.  He has to adjust to the
personal peculiarities of his employers and their relations, the personal
vices and virtues.
  By the time I came to write "Hard Times," I was concerned among other
things with the growing distance between worker and employer.  Stephen, to
be sure, does in point of fact work for Bounderby, but Bounderby's
understanding of Stephen grows out of ignorance and indifference, not close
knowledge.  And the "hands" of Coketown, the people of Coketown generally,
live regulated mechanical lives, not lives marked by the intimacy of
personal closeness to their masters. I believe that the difference between
"Nicholas Nickleby" and "Hard Times" marks a development in what you and
other sages call the Industrial Revolution.
  You could do worse, my friend, than compare details of "Hard Times" with
details of "Nicholas Nickleby."  Whatever you choose to do, I wish you luck
in your endeavour.

Faithfully yours,


Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>I need to make an analysis between Hard Times and the inndustrial
revolution.  For example 3 of the women in Hard times and how the women
lived during the industrial revolution.  Please, guide me in the right
direction.
>
>

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