So this week (and I guess
technically last week too) we read Hard Times
by Charles Dickens. I have of course heard of this book before, as well as
others by Charles Dickens (i.e. Tale of
Two Cities), that I have been interested in reading. However, Hard Times definitely was not how I
expected it to be and gave me a hard time reading it. I guess I have
encountered this before, older novels usually are a little bit more complex and
difficult to read than today’s average young adult novel, but even the plot and
contents were a little more depressing than I imagined.
The book is a realistic view on the
world and society, I still like reading books with happy endings though.
Starting off, I just felt sorry for the majority of the characters. Louisa,
Sissy, and Stephen all just had such bad situations going. Lousia was forced to
grow up too fast and never even experienced a childhood because of her father’s
extreme obsession with facts. I can’t possibly imagine a child being so serious
and never even imagining anything at all. Both of my younger cousins talk
non-stop about only things they imagine, especially the younger of the two. My
youngest cousin is only 6 so definitely younger than Louisa, but all he does is
tell made-up stories and talk about what he dreamt about as well as make up
random games. So the imagine of a little girl doing only homework and fact
drills at that age is definitely sad. Also, one of the other depressing things
about Louisa that really hit me was how unemotional and casually she decided to
marry Bounderby. She just looked at the facts about the situation and did not
consider her romantic feelings at all and in turn this lead to an unhappy
marriage. Even after she eventually manages to find feelings for another man
and leave Bounderby, she never does remarry or have kids.
Then with Sissy, it was terribly sad
that her father abandoned her like that. Just like how close she is to her
father, I am really close with my mother who also raised me as a single parent.
I can’t even imagine my mother leaving me like that so it is just really sad to
think that Sissy had to go through something like that. Then after that to be
told that she is not smart enough to continue through school, that her nickname
“Sissy” is not suitable, and practically be treated as a maid just makes it all
that much worse. The fact that she ends up getting married in the end and has a
large happy family is a little bit of a silver lining; after all, Sissy was
probably the most innocent and sweet character of the novel.
Finally there was Stephen Blackpool
who is only a “hand” at Bounderby’s factory and is in love with Rachel yet
married to a horrible drunkard hag who only comes back into his life on
occasion to collect more money from him and steal his belongings. I feel his circumstances
were the most miserable of all because from the beginning he was just such a
pitiful character, than he was told he could never get a divorce because he was
too poor and finally ended up dying after being falsely accused as a bank
robber. That situation was probably the worst because Tom was just a selfish
crook who took advantage of Stephens situation and framed the poor guy.
Other than these three examples the
fact that Bounderby banned his own mother from ever seeing him and that she still
checked in once a year was sad. As well was that Tom died alone away from his
family once he saw the error of his ways, and that Mrs. Sparsit, who was just trying
to help, gets fired for accidentally bringing Bounderby’s mother to him. I don’t
know why but I wasn’t expecting this book to be so depressing but almost all
the characters got the short end of the stick it seemed.
No comments:
Post a Comment