1. Charles Dickens 1812-1870

2. Intro One of England’s favorite novelists 2nd of 8 children Son of a clerk Father ended up in debtor’s prision Expert character creator Often through exaggeration Focused on: Social abuses Reluctant revolutionary - conflicted Dim view of soceity Prisons factories But sentimental to domestic scenes

3. “Hard Times” Highlights social and economic problems of the nation Set in fictitious “Coketown” Probably a Manchester equivalent Dickens literary side is put at odds with the reformer in him: Anti-Utilitarian Did not believe a completely “rationalized” society was possible Anti- laissez-faire capitalism These two philosophies combined and caused Contempt for workers by the factory owners Neglect of imaginative development in favor of “the facts”

4. “Hard Times” Coketown excerpt: Physical description of the city Emphasizes: Filthiness Sameness Industrial, machine-like Churches: 18 different sects All buildings look the same “pious warehouse of red brick”

5. “Hard Times” Fact factfact Attacks utilitarianism Everywhere in both the “material” and the “immaterial” Schools Relationship between the “master” and “man” Everything between “lying in hospital and the cemetery” Attacks use of statistics/capitalism: “What you couldn’t state in figures” What you could buy at the lowest price and sell for a profit Did not exist in that philosophy

6. “Hard Times” The workers Don’t go to these churches Sunday routine Get drunk Take opium