Hard Times †Charles Dickens Essay -- English Literature

Hard Times – Charles Dickens ‘Discuss the theme of education in Hard Times’ Charles Dickens was a great author of the 19th Century and his books are recognised and loved nation wide. Many people understand the meaning to his books, as they are not just plain fiction. In the novel Hard Times Dickens intensely criticises the British system of education and how it has evolved over the years: the 19th Century philosophy of ‘Utilitarianism’. Dickens believed this system was a failure, as it changed children’s minds and morals, and it is this novel that he attempts to show the horrors that this system has created. A principle was formed by Jeremy Bentham, the eighteenth century philosopher, calculating ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. This theory explained that self-interest was the primary motivating force behind all human conduct; people strived for pleasure and tried in vain to avoid pain. Bentham advocated a system of calculation known as ‘moral arithmetic’. This was used whenever a decision had to be made about a particular choice of action, be it an individual deed or a law affecting million. The equation was a simple one: pleasure vs. pain. If all the factors fell in the direction of pleasure for the greatest number then the appropriate course of action was adopted. However, it failed to take account of the happiness and well-being of those who did not belong to the greatest number. It also presumed that every human being on earth prized nothing but material values. The catastrophes that this pathetic philosophy caused are explored and criticised by Dickens in the novel Hard Times. The philosophy also emphasised the practical usefulness of things. This meant that art, imagination, pl... ...ildren’s education. The grim pursuit of facts is contrasted with the colourful and rich life of the imagination as experienced by the circus folk. When one of them is subjected to the rigours of Gradgrind’s educational philosophy her human nature naturally rejects the attacks made on it: Sissy Jupe leans nothing from the artificially imposed educative processes familiar in the Gradgrind household. Nut, as we see later in the novel, her own essential goodness is instrumental in educating those suffering from the inadequacies of the Gradgrind philosophy. The children are denied the natural pursuits of childhood such as play, fantasy, fun and entertainment. They are ‘dead’ as children and are forced, by Gradgrind’s system, to become unnatural children. They are therefore without essential qualities needed in adulthood and as of this they become in humane.