Comparative studies of two Victorian novels, Oliver Twist and Middlemarch become an interesting subject when its culture, age and time are almost all same. One is female novelist, whereas another is male novelist. How they give different treatment to both the novels, how their plot, structure, plot, themes, characters, society etc are looked differently is very interesting to be studied.

Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickson and Middlemarch, written by George Eliot are torn apart as far as titles of both novels are concerned. The similarities that are founding then, is their titles are symbolic by the word ‘March’ and ‘Twist’. To fight against reality and face problems is ‘March’ and it is for getting centre of the society. Same we find in Oliver Twist. He is twisted by the repercussions and circumstances and he find survival at the end of the novel. Title symbolizes the people of the age who were facing the bitter reality of life. For example, Oliver, Nancy, etc in Oliver Twist and Dorothea, Casaubon, Fred Vincy etc in Middlemarch are similar by nature. They face common problems like Economics, social problems, poverty, husband-wife problems are common but the treatment that is applied is different, in a sense that its effect is different. Dorothea’s and Casaubon’s problem regarding marriage is different because of the common blunder of misunderstanding and wrong belief regarding society. While in Oliver Twist, Oliver’s problem is a common for all children of the age. Oliver Twist is just a symbol who is twisted by bully’s hands. Just only one Oliver is adequate to depict the problem regarding oppression and exploitation. Fred Vincy’s poverty is created by himself by not caring his financial condition and drinking wine every time. He just depicts his problems individually as far as individualism is concerned Middlemarch is best for that. At the same time, problem of Oliver is a problem of Indian people who are little by age and work in tea-stall, book-stall, etc.

Just only one dialogue of Oliver Twist by Oliver is adequate of the problem of hunger and poverty.

Please sir, I want some more”.

Each and every individual children of Victorian Age strives for food and bed. ‘I’, ‘want’, ‘more’ refer to individual right, significance and relevance. The individual rights, poor law of 1832 and voting right in Oliver Twist are individually oriented. But the individual efforts of the children, women and poor people become an united voice against workhouses, Board and institutions. But Middlemarch is all about the study of provincial life that itself is a study of common people but their individual efforts are not united but separated because

one character faces the problem of marriage, other for education and strive for demystifying the secret to all mythologies, other is for medical practice but cannot find the matter from separate parts and organs of the body. Other characters want to come out from individual problem. At the same time in Oliver Twist, no poor character has any power to come out from it. Thieves remain thieves. Poor people are poor from beginning to an end. Masters are masters till an end.

To reform society is common element in both the novels. To reform is to bring morality is common. The core point is one character lacks something and they are marching to reform other. Reformation comes from within not from outside. Charles Dickens becomes a reformist by putting caricature like character. He juxtaposes two good and bad characters and finds out good and bad characteristics of the people of Victorian Age. George Eliot makes Dorothea as a mouthpiece and compares with Saint Theresa. She is of a desire to reform society but how would she do that is not depicted. Marriage is climax of life when two people marry because they realize to each other. Their illusions are vanished after sometime. A person, who can maintain husband-wife relationship, can face all the problem of life.

Just putting Dorothea and Casaubon and Nancy and Bill Sikes together we come to know that they never come to term because they have their individual conceptual reality of life. They think differently. Casaubon wants some who help him at the same time Dorothea has a same want. But this is reverse case in relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy. Bill is a thief and he can not maintain the matrimonial relationship. The relationships between Agnes and army man that want to come together but circumstance do not let it happen. The concept of marriage is corrupted morally in both the novels.

Comparison can be in the novelist also. One is male novelist of Oliver Twits and another is female novelist of Middlemarch. The feministic theory is more relevant to the novel of George Eliot. Marry Anne Ivan is a real name of George Eliot and her actual love affair is woven in way that directly mirror her life. Dorothea suffered how she depicts the matrimonial problems in Marry Garth and Fred Vincy. Economics is a cause of their relationship. She (Novelist) never brings happiness in female characters, even it comes, remains transitory. This suffering represents the suffering of women in the age of George Eliot. Same suffering is depicted in Oliver Twist. Nancy, Agnes, etc are stood for women’s struggle. Even being a male novelist, Charles Dickens does not bring happy life in the male characters. Dickens observes love among children and women, children and old aged people. He does not give justice to Oliver. He still suffers a lot.

Complexity is common feature of Middlemarch and Oliver Twist. All characters build relationship like a cob-web but where is the spider, a maker of

complex structure of net? It is only human being. Characters contradict in their dialogues and actions. Just look at Dorothea. She wanted to reform a society and she was disturbed. A lady who cannot maintain her marriage, how can she reform the society? That idea cannot be swallowed. Even Casaubon’s was a same case.

Apart from characters, theme, language society, one can compare the structure and plot of the novels. The plot of Oliver Twist and Middlemarch are complex that’s why complicate. Number of characters make plot complex. Just we have to imagine whose are a complex as well as main plot. One can say Dorothea is an also a main character. Because of him the story gets momentum. Casaubon, Will Ladislaw, Fred Vincy, Dorothea, Celia, Cadwallader, Garth, Mr. Bulstrode are deeply connected to each other. At the same time each and every plot of Oliver Twist has its climax and relief. Simple plot but treatment that is given to every character is complex. Even going deep into the characters like Nancy, Bumble, Sowerberry, one does not find anything. We have to think over it. Then one comes to know that these characters are the representative of the age. Web like structure is found in novels. Oliver is connected to Bumble, Sowerberry, Nancy, Bill Sikes, Brownlow, Artful Dodger, Maylie and Important character like Fagin by whom Oliver comes out from survival.

The study of language is much tricky. First the image of Oliver Twist is complex and baffling one. But language that Dickens uses becomes character’s language. Oliver speaks like a child; Fagin’s language is Manipulative, Bill Sikes’s language is sharp and terrible, Bumble’s language is harsh and brings horrible to all children. Different characters have variations in their languages. It suits to every character. But I Middlemarch the case is different. The language is same. Dorothea to Garth family, the language is similar in speaking.

Thus, comparison between two texts Oliver Twist and Middlemarch brings similarities and differences, too.

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Justified

Format Drama

Crime Developed by Graham Yost

Starring

Timothy Olyphant Nick Searcy Joelle Carter Jacob Pitts Erica Tazel Natalie Zea

Walton Goggins

Opening theme "Long Hard Times to Come" by Gangstagrass

Country of origin United StatesLanguage(s) EnglishNo. of seasons 3No. of episodes 39 (List of episodes)

ProductionExecutive producer(s) Elmore Leonard

Location(s) Los Angeles [1]

Pittsburgh (pilot)[1]

Running time 38–42 minutes

52 minutes (pilot)[2]

Production company(s)

Sony Pictures TelevisionRooney McP ProductionsTimberman-Beverly ProductionsNemo FilmsFX Productions

Distributor Sony Pictures TelevisionBroadcast

Original channel FXOriginal run March 16, 2010 – present

External links

Website

Justified is an American television drama series developed by Graham Yost. It is based on Elmore Leonard's novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story "Fire in the Hole".[3] Its main character is Raylan Givens, a deputy U.S. Marshal. The series is set in the city of Lexington, Kentucky, and the hill country of eastern Kentucky, specifically in and around Harlan.[4] Timothy Olyphant portrays Givens, a tough federal lawman, enforcing his own brand of (at times extralegal) justice in his Kentucky hometown.[3]

Justified premiered on March 16, 2010, on the FX network.[3][5] In Canada, Justified airs on Super Channel.[6] The show was renewed for a second season, which premiered on February 9, 2011.[7] A third season of 13 episodes was announced on March 29, 2011,[8] and premiered January 17, 2012. A fourth season of 13 episodes was announced on March 6, 2012.[9]

Justified has received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for its acting, directing, art direction, and writing, as well as for Olyphant's lead performance.

Contents 1 Plot

o 1.1 Season 1 o 1.2 Season 2 o 1.3 Season 3

2 Cast o 2.1 Main cast o 2.2 Recurring cast

3 Production o 3.1 Title o 3.2 Filming o 3.3 Crew o 3.4 Theme song

4 Reception and awards 5 Home media releases 6 References

7 External links

PlotMain article: List of Justified episodes

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is something of a 19th century–style lawman in modern times, whose unconventional enforcement of justice makes him a target of criminals and his U.S. Marshals Service bosses alike. As a result of his controversial but

"justified", quick-draw shooting of a mob hit-man in Miami, Givens is disciplined by being re-assigned from Miami, to Kentucky. The Lexington, Kentucky Marshals office's jurisdiction includes Harlan County (a hopelessly impoverished, backwoods, coal-mining community in southeastern Kentucky)—which Raylan hates, and thought he had escaped for good, in his youth.

Season 1

The story arc of season one of Justified concentrated on the crimes of the Crowder family. Family patriarch Bo (M.C. Gainey) was involved in schemes to control the local oxycontin and marijuana trade, while his son Boyd (Walton Goggins) sought to create a recovery group and deal with his family's criminal leanings.

Season 2

Season two dealt primarily with the criminal dealings of the Bennett clan. Family matriarch Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) and her three sons—Dickie (Jeremy Davies), Coover (Brad William Henke), and Doyle (Joseph Lee Taylor)—have taken over the marijuana business on Black Mountain following the death of Bo Crowder. This places them in a rivalry with Boyd; Raylan gets involved due to the struggle between the two rival criminal organizations. Meanwhile, an effort by a mining conglomerate to secure access rights to the mountain gets Raylan and Boyd involved on opposite sides of the operation and provokes local backlash against the Bennetts.

Season 3

Season three introduces a new main villain—Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough) of Detroit. The parent criminal organization connected to the Frankfort mafia has exiled Quarles to Kentucky. Quarles begins to muscle in on the local criminals, successfully supplanting them until Raylan begins investigating. Quarles' efforts also bring him into conflict with Boyd's group resulting in the death of several local individuals. Simultaneously, Dickie Bennett—the lone survivor of the Bennett clan—seeks the aid of the black residents of Noble's Holler and their leader Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson) in recovering his inheritance. Limehouse attempts to keep his people out of the struggle between the criminal groups but becomes involved when Boyd gets the upper hand on Quarles, leading to a series of betrayals and deaths.

Cast

Main cast

Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens Nick Searcy as Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Art Mullen Joelle Carter as Ava Crowder Jacob Pitts as Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Gutterson

Erica Tazel as Deputy U.S. Marshal Rachel Brooks Natalie Zea as Winona Hawkins Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder (Recurring Season 1, regular Season 2-

Present)

Recurring cast

Raymond J. Barry as Arlo Givens (Season 1–present) David Meunier as Johnny Crowder (Season 1–present) Damon Herriman as Dewey Crowe (Season 1–present) Jere Burns as Wynn Duffy (Season 1–present) M.C. Gainey as Bo Crowder (Season 1) Brent Sexton as Sheriff Hunter Mosley (Season 1) Linda Gehringer as Helen Givens (Season 1–3) William Ragsdale as Gary Hawkins (Season 1–3) Jeremy Davies as Dickie Bennett (Season 2–present)[10]

Margo Martindale as Mags Bennett (Season 2)[11]

Joseph Lyle Taylor as Doyle Bennett (Season 2)[12]

Brad William Henke as Coover Bennett (Season 2) Peter Murnik as State Trooper Tom Bergen (Season 2–3) Kaitlyn Dever as Loretta McCready (Season 2–present) Jim Beaver as Sheriff Shelby (Season 2–present) Abby Miller as Ellen May (Season 2–present)[13]

Mykelti Williamson as Ellstin Limehouse (Season 3–present)[14]

Neal McDonough as Robert Quarles (Season 3)[15]

Brendan McCarthy as Tanner Dodd (Season 3) Demetrius Grosse as Errol (Season 3) Ron Eldard as Colt (Season 4)[16]

Joe Mazzello as Billy St. Cyr (Season 4)[17]

Patton Oswalt as Constable Bob Sweeney (Season 4)

Production

Title

The working title for the series was Lawman.[18] The first episode was referred to as the "Fire in the Hole pilot" during shooting and retains this as the name of the episode itself.[1][19]

Filming

While the pilot was shot in Pittsburgh and suburban Kittanning, Pennsylvania and Washington, Pennsylvania, the subsequent 38 episodes were shot in California. The small town of Green Valley, California often doubles for Harlan, KY. In the pilot, Pittsburgh's

David L. Lawrence Convention Center appears on film as the small town "airport" and the construction of the new Consol Energy Center serves as the "new courthouse".[1]

Crew

The series was developed for television by Graham Yost based on the character U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens from Elmore Leonard's novels Pronto and Riding the Rap, and his short story "Fire in the Hole".[3] Both Yost and Leonard are credited as executive producers on the project. Yost is the series head writer and show runner. Other executive producers for the series include Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly and Michael Dinner. Dinner directed the series pilot, the second episode of the first season, and the second season finale.

Theme song

The theme song to the show is "Long Hard Times to Come" performed by the New York City–based Gangstagrass, produced by Rench and featuring rapper T.O.N.E-z, Matt Check on banjo, Gerald Menke on resonator guitar, and Jason Cade on fiddle.[20] The song was nominated for a 2010 Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Best Title Theme.[21][22]

Reception and awardsThe series has been highly acclaimed by critics. The pilot episode that aired on March 16, 2010 was watched by 4.2 million viewers and was the highest debut show for FX since The Shield.[23] On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the first season scored 81/100, the second season scored 91/100 and the third season scored 89/100, all indicating "universal acclaim".

For the first season, the series saw critical acclaim, TV Guide critic Matt Roush praised the series, particularly the acting of Olyphant, stating "The show is grounded in Olyphant's low-key but high-impact star-making performance, the work of a confident and cunning leading man who's always good company." Chicago Tribune critic Maureen Ryan praised the series, stating "The shaggily delightful dialogue, the deft pacing, the authentic sense of place, the rock-solid supporting cast and the feeling that you are in the hands of writers, actors and directors who really know what they're doing—all of these are worthy reasons to watch Justified."

The second season saw universal critical acclaim, Robert Bianco of USA Today praised Margo Martindale's Performance, stating "Like the show itself, Margo Martindale's performance is smart, chilling, amusing, convincing and unfailingly entertaining. And like the show, you really don't want to miss it." Slant Magazine critic Scott Von Doviak praised Olyphant's performance and the writing for this season, stating "Justified's rich vein of gallows humor, convincing sense of place, and twisty hillbilly-noir narratives are all selling points, but it's Olyphant's devilish grin that seals the deal."

The third season saw critical acclaim, Robert Bianco of USA Today praised this season, stating "As you'd hope from a show based on Elmore Leonard's work, the plots snap, the dialogue crackles and—to press on with the point—the characters pop."

Justified received a 2010 Peabody Award.[24][25] On July 14, 2011, it was announced that Justified was nominated for four Emmy Awards, all for acting at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards—Olyphant for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the episode "Reckoning", Goggins for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the episode "The I of the Storm", Martindale for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the episode "Brother's Keeper", and Davies for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the episode "Reckoning". On September 18, 2011, Martindale won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, and accepted in person at the telecast. On July 19, 2012, it was announced that Justified had been nominated for two Emmy Award at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, with Jeremy Davies receiving a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the episode "Coalition", and a second nomination for Outstanding Art Direction for a single camera series.[26] Jeremy Davies went on to win Outstanding Guest Actor on September 15, 2012.

Author Elmore Leonard ranks Justified as one of the best adaptations of his work, which includes Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, 3:10 to Yuma and Out of Sight. Leonard also praised the casting of Olyphant as Raylan, describing the actor as “the kind of guy I saw when I wrote his lines."[27]

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The Life and Work of Charles Dickens Charles Dickens is one of the most popular and beloved writers who ever lived. His novels and tales catered to a vast and intensely loyal audience. More than just an entertainer, Dickens used his enormous popularity to attack injustice and strengthen the sympathies of his readers for the poor and the helpless, for orphans and outcast persons.

Charles John Huffham Dickens was born in 1812, near Portsmouth, England, to a family in the middle-class. His father was a minor government official, a clerk in the navy’s pay office; his paternal grandmother had been in domestic service, as a housekeeper. In his boyhood, Dickens’ family experienced money troubles. For a time, his father was even imprisoned for debt in London’s Marshalsea Prison. His wife and younger children accompanied him to the prison. But Dickens, the second eldest of eight children, was expected to work to help the family. He was pulled out of school, and, at the age of 12, sent to work in a factory warehouse, pasting labels on bottles of blacking (shoe polish) for six shillings a week.

Dickens’ father was eventually released and Dickens resumed his schooling. For the proud, sensitive boy, who had dreamed of becoming a distinguished gentleman, the whole experience had been a terrible, humiliating, lonely ordeal. It profoundly affected him, haunted his writing (most notably in the autobiographical David Copperfield), and colored his view of the world.

At 15, Dickens left school to become a clerk in a law office. After teaching himself shorthand, he became a legal reporter, and covered debates in Parliament for the newspapers. His skepticism about organized politics and established institutions probably dates from this time in his life.

In 1837, when he was only 25, Pickwick Papers was published. His first novel, it was an enormous success with the public. It was issued in installments, as a serial, as were the rest of his novels, including Hard Times, which appeared in 1854. Writing his novels in this way, in cheap monthly or weekly parts (called “numbers”) was somewhat confining to Dickens’ creative freedom. But it also allowed for an extraordinary closeness between Dickens and his readers and made him into an expert at “cliff-hanger” endings. His audience (which, of course, had no movies or TV soap operas to distract it) was kept in suspense, impatient to discover what happened to the characters in the next “number.”

Dickens’ fame came early and never left him. He worked tirelessly to sustain it, and to support the 10 children given him by his wife, Catherine Hogarth, the genteel daughter of one of Dickens’ newspaper editors. In early years riches eluded him, but in later life his novels paid handsomely, and he was able to purchase a mansion in the country, Gads Hill Place. This was the very house that in his childhood his father had often pointed out to him on their walks together, telling him that if he worked hard he might hope to live there one day.

The glittering success Dickens had made of his life, its seeming vindication of his society’s beliefs about the value of perseverance and hard work, still left him in many ways unsatisfied and restless within himself. In 1858 his marriage to Catherine, never entirely happy, ended in a separation, and he began a relationship with an actress, Ellen Lawless Ternan, who was many years his junior. The happy marriages with which so many of his novels end are offset by acute descriptions, notably in evidence in Hard Times, of bad marriages and unhappy homes.

Dickens often spoke out on public affairs and became involved with a variety of causes such as prison reform and the abolition of the death penalty. In 1842 he visited America, and although sympathetic to the young republic, was forthright in criticizing its failings, particularly the evil of slavery. In England he lent his active support to a variety of philanthropic endeavors. The problem of the education of the poor, and of children particularly, engaged his attention. Along with its focus on the evils of the industrial system, education is a major theme of Hard Times.

Hard Times sold well, significantly boosting the circulation of the weekly magazine (founded and edited by Dickens himself), in which it first appeared. The critical reception

was mixed. Dickens’ accounts of industrial life and his satirical treatment of political economists were attacked by critics with a stake in the debate; the popular journalist and adherent of laissez-faire economics Harriet Martineau, for example, found it “unlike life…master and man are as unlike life in England, at present, as Ogre and Tom Thumb.” But John Ruskin, the great Victorian art critic and sage, thought Hard Times the greatest of Dickens’ works, and wrote that it “should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions.” Nearer to our own time, figures as different as George Bernard Shaw and Sigmund Freud have testified to its power. In his book The Great Tradition, the influential English critic F. R. Leavis asserted that Hard Times is “a masterpiece,” which (according to Leavis) unlike any of his other novels has the strength of a “completely serious work of art.”

Toward the end of his life, Dickens threw himself into a series of highly dramatic public readings of his works. While remunerative, these were emotionally draining and contributed to his declining health. He died in 1870. Universally mourned, he was buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.

After Shakespeare, Dickens is the most written about author in English literature. Dickens’ 14 major novels, and numerous shorter works such as A Christmas Carol, brim with humor, satire, and pathos; they teem with a fantastic array of entertaining characters and convey vividly and memorably a sense of the author’s times: its hopes and sorrows, follies and pleasures, houses and streets, factories and schools, manners and people. In one way or another they all also show Dickens’ intense concern with the injustices of his society. Some of these continue to beset us in our own, very different, time; this is one of the reasons why Dickens’ work still speaks to us to this day

2 Chapter Summaries Buy this Lit Note

Hard Times By Charles Dickens About Hard Times Next

Hard Times, a social protest novel of nineteenth-century England, is aptly titled. Not only does the working class, known as the "Hands," have a "hard time" in this novel; so do the other classes as well. Dickens divided the novel into three separate books, two of which, "Sowing" and "Reaping," exemplify the biblical concept of "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

The third book, entitled "Garnering," Dickens paraphrased from the book of Ruth, in which Ruth garnered grain in the fields of Boaz. Each of his major characters sows, each reaps, and each garners what is left.

Since Charles Dickens wrote of the conditions and the people of his time, it is worthwhile to understand the period in which he lived and worked.

No British sovereign since Queen Elizabeth I has exerted such a profound influence on an age as did Queen Victoria (1837-1901). She presided over the period rather than shaped it. The nineteenth century was an age of continual change and unparalleled expansion in almost every field of activity. Not only was it an era of reform, industrialization, achievement in science, government, literature, and world expansion but also a time when people struggled to assert their independence. Man, represented en masse as the laboring class, rose in power and prosperity and gave his voice to government.

There were great intellectual and spiritual disturbances both in society and within the individual. The literature of the period reflects the conflict between the advocates of the triumphant material prosperity of the country and those who felt it had been achieved by the exploitation of human beings at the expense of spiritual and esthetic values. In theory, people of the period committed themselves on the whole to a hard-headed utilitarianism, yet most of the literature is idealistic and romantic.

The prophets of the time deplored the inroads of science upon religious faith, but the Church of England was revivified by the Oxford Movement; evangelical Protestantism was never stronger and more active; and the Roman Catholic Church was becoming an increasingly powerful religious force in England.

Not even in politics were the issues clear-cut. The Whigs prepared the way for the great economic reform of the age, the repeal of the Corn Laws; but it was a Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel, who finally brought that repeal through Parliament.

This century, marked by the Industrial Revolution, was also a century of political and economic unrest in the world: America was torn by the strife of the Civil War; France was faced with the problem of recovery from the wars of Napoleon; and Germany was emerging as a great power.

The Industrial Revolution, though productive of much good, created deplorable living conditions in England. Overcrowding in the cities as a consequence of the population shift from rural to urban areas and the increase in the numbers of immigrants from poverty-stricken Ireland resulted in disease and hunger for thousands of the laboring class. But with the fall of Napoleon, the returning soldiers added not only to the growing numbers of workers but also to the hunger and misery. With the advent of the power loom came unemployment. A surplus labor supply caused wages to drop. Whole families, from the youngest to the oldest, had to enter the factories, the woolen mills, the coal mines, or the cotton mills in order to survive. Children were exploited by employers; for a pittance a day a nine-year-old worked twelve and fourteen hours in the mills, tied to the machines, or in the coal mines pulling carts to take the coal from the shafts. Their fingers were smaller and quicker than those of adults; thus, for picking out the briars and burrs from both cotton and wool, employers preferred to hire children.

Studies of the working and living conditions in England between 1800 and 1834 showed that 82 percent of the workers in the mills were between the ages of eleven and eighteen. Many of these studies proved that 62 percent of the workers in the fabric mills had tuberculosis. The factories were open, barnlike structures, not equipped with any system of heat and ventilation.

These studies, presented to Parliament, resulted in some attempt to bring about reforms in working conditions and to alleviate some of the dire poverty in England. In 1802, the Health Act was passed to provide two hours of instruction for all apprentices. In 1819, a child labor law was enacted which limited to eleven hours a day the working hours of children five to eleven years of age; however, this law was not enforced.

The first great "Victorian" reform antedated Queen Victoria by five years. Until 1832 the old Tudor list of boroughs was still in use. As a result, large towns of recent growth had no representation in Parliament, while some unpopulated localities retained theirs. In essence, the lords who controlled these boroughs (known as rotten boroughs in history) sold seats to the highest bidders. This political pattern was broken when the Reform Bill of 1832 abolished all boroughs with fewer than two thousand inhabitants and decreased by 50 percent the number of representatives admitted from towns with a population between two thousand and four thousand. Only after rioting and a threat of civil war did the House of Lords approve the Reform Bill. With this bill came a new type of Parliament — one with representatives from the rising middle class-and several other important reforms.

In 1833, the Emancipation Bill ended slavery in British colonies, with heavy compensation to the owners. Even though chattel slavery was abolished, industrial slavery continued. Also in 1833 came the first important Factory Law, one which

prohibited the employment of children under the age of nine. Under this law, children between the ages of nine and thirteen could not work for more than nine hours a day. Night work was prohibited for persons under twenty-one years of age and for all women. By 1849, subsequent legislation provided half day or alternate days of schooling for the factory children, thus cutting down the working hours of children fourteen or under.

The Poor Law of 1834 provided for workhouses; indigent persons, accustomed to living where they pleased, bitterly resented this law, which compelled them to live with their families in workhouses In fact, the living conditions were so bad that these workhouses were named the "Bastilles of the Poor." Here the poor people, dependent upon the government dole, were subjected to the inhuman treatment of cruel supervisors; an example is Mr. Bumble in Dickens' Oliver Twist. If the people rejected this rule of body and soul, they had two alternatives as the machines took more jobs and the wages dropped — either steal or starve. Conditions in prisons were even more deplorable than in the workhouses. Debtors' prison, as revealed in Dickens' David Copperfield, was a penalty worse than death.

The undemocratic character of the Reform Bill of 1832, the unpopularity of the Poor Law, and the unhappy conditions of the laborers led to the Chartist Movement of the 1840s. The demands of the Chartist Movement were the abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament, salaries for members of Parliament, annual election of Parliament, equal electoral districts, equal manhood suffrage, and voting by secret ballot. Chartism, the most formidable working-class movement England had ever seen, failed. The Chartists had no way to identify their cause with the interests of any influential class. Ultimately, though, most of the ends they sought were achieved through free discussion and legislative action.

In 1846, the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, led the repeal of the Corn Laws of 1815. With the repeal of these laws, which were nothing more than protective tariffs in the interest of the landlords and farmers to prevent the importation of cheap foreign grain, came a period of free trade and a rapid increase in manufacture and commerce which gave the working class an opportunity to exist outside the workhouses.

As the country awoke to the degradation of the working classes, industrial reform proceeded gradually but inevitably, in spite of the advocates of laissez-faire and industrial freedom. The political life of the nineteenth century was tied up with its economic theories. The doctrine of laissez-faire (let alone), first projected by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, was later elaborated upon by Jeremy Bentham and T. R. Malthus, whose doctrine of Utility was the principle of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." In other words, this principle meant that the government should allow the economic situation to adjust itself naturally through the laws of supply and demand. With this system, a person at one extreme be-comes a millionaire and at the other, a beggar. Thomas Carlyle called this system of economy "the dismal science." Dickens, influenced by Carlyle, castigated it again and again. The Utilitarians, however, helped bring about the repeal of the Corn Laws and to abolish cruel punishment. When Victoria became queen, there were four hundred and thirty-eight offenses punishable by death. During her

reign, the death penalty was limited to two offenses — murder and treason. With the softening of the penalties and the stressing of prevention and correction came a decrease in crime.

Even though writers of the period protested human degradation under modern industrialism, the main factor in improvement of conditions for labor was not outside sympathy but the initiative taken by the workers themselves. They learned that organized trade unions were more constructive to their welfare than riots and the destruction of machines, which had occurred during the Chartist Movement. Gradually the laboring classes won the right to help themselves. Trade unions were legalized in 1864; two workingmen candidates were elected to Parliament in 1874.

Karl Marx founded the first International Workingmen's Association in London in 1864; three years later he published Das Kapital, a book of modern communism. In 1884, the Fabian Society appeared, headed by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and other upper middle-class intellectuals. The Fabians believed that socialism would come about gradually without violence.

Once the rights of the workers were recognized, education became of interest to Parliament. In 1870, the Elementary Education Bill provided education for all; in 1891, free common education for all became compulsory. Poet George Meredith and economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill worked for "female emancipation." From this period of change came such women as Florence Nightingale and Frances Powers.

Politics and economics do not make up the whole of a nation's life. In the nineteenth century, both religion and science affected the thought and the literature of the period. In 1833, after the Reform Bill of 1832, a group of Oxford men, dissatisfied with the conditions of the Church of England, began the Oxford Movement with the purpose of bringing about in the Church a reformation which would increase spiritual power and emphasize and restore the Catholic doctrine and ritual. Begun by John Keble, the movement carried on its reforms primarily through a series of papers called Tracts for the Times. Chief among the reformers was John Henry Newman, a vicar of St. Mary's.

The second half of Queen Victoria's reign was one of prosperity and advancement in science. Inventions such as the steam engine, the telephone, telegraph, and the wireless made communication easier and simpler. Man became curious about and interested in the unknown. New scientific and philosophic research in the fields of geology and biology influenced the religious mind of England. A series of discoveries with respect to Man's origin challenged accepted opinions regarding the universe and our place in it. Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-33) established a continuous history of life on this planet; Sir Frances Galton did pioneer work in the field of heredity; Charles Darwin's Origin of Species gave the world the theory of evolution. The Origin of Species maintained that all living creatures had developed through infinite differentiations from a single source. This one work had the most profound influence of all secular writings on the thinking of the period. Following its publication, there were three schools of thought concerning Man's origin: first, Darwin's evidence did not justify his conclusions;

therefore, nothing had changed in religious beliefs regarding origin and creation. Second, Darwin's evidence had left no room for God in the universe; therefore, everything had changed and thinking must change. Third, Darwin's theories simply reaffirmed the Biblical concepts; therefore, "evolution is just God's way of doing things."

The conflict between the theologians and the scientists raged not only throughout the remainder of the century but was inevitably reflected in the literature of the period. Poets of the era can be classified through their attitudes toward religion and science. Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning stand as poets of faith, whereas Matthew Arnold and Arthur Hugh Clough represent the skeptics and the doubters. Later Victorian verse showed less of the conflict than the earlier.

Historians have called Charles Dickens the greatest of the Victorian novelists. His creative genius was surpassed only by that of Shakespeare. Many later novelists were to feel the influence of this writer, whose voice became the trumpet of protest against economic conditions of the age. George Bernard Shaw once said that Little Dorrit was as seditious a book as Das Kapital. Thus, according to critics, Dickens' Hard Times is a relentless indictment of the callous greed of the Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy.

ummary: Dickens shows his moral views in `Hard Times' expressing his belief that Victorian schools and their teachers are complete negative influences. He saw the Victorian education system as ineffective and often wrote essays attacking the forces of industrialisation, the government and those responsible for what he saw as the poor schooling techniques.

Hard Times

Dickens did not like the changes industrialisation brought to Victorian society. Industrialisation brought many factories, poor working conditions and overcrowded cities. Dickens also hated Victorian schools altogether. He saw the Victorian education system as ineffective and often wrote essays attacking the forces of industrialisation, the government and those responsible for what he saw as the poor schooling techniques. He shows this hatred clearly in `Hard times' and nowhere more so than in his description of Gradgrind.

Dickens often gave characters in his novels names that summed up their personality, for example; Mr. M'Choakumchild chokes children to death, Ebenezer Scrooge, unwilling to give or spend and Thomas Gradgrind grinds down the kids.

"we hope to have, before long a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact and nothing but fact." This firstly shows that it is not just Gradgrind that is obsessed with facts, it is the whole school, implying the

whole education system is like this. Also they wish for the facts to be `forced' upon all people as they are doing in the school. Dickens put Gradgrind across as forceful, having high standards, obsessed and full of facts and wishing everyone of his pupils to be as smart as he is. Mr M'Choakumchild is shown very similar to Gradgrind, this gives the impression that all teachers of this time are like this.

The school is set in `coketown', this gives the impression that English towns around the industrial revolution are ugly, polluted and destroy health. Dickens gives this impression. This is not his first novel dealing with school, he also wrote David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby.

The school is described as plain, containing no imagination or decoration, just straight to the point as if it was built purely of facts. The rooms are white-washed and bare to represent the industry at that time. Dickens describes them as "plain, bare monotonous vault of a school-room." This `vault' gives the impression of the school-room being like a prison cell, big, bare, white-washed and with barred up windows. The children are like prisoners, under the strict rules and always watchful eye of Gradgrind. They are arranged like prisoners, in evenly-spaced rows strictly monitored and not to move.

Sissy Jupe is a colourful character, full of life. She is very polite, curtsying to address Gradgrind. Sissy is very proud of her father, she thinks of him highly, we can tell this by the way she tries to defend him against the mighty onslaught of Gradgrind's criticism "it's father calls me Sissy, sir"," He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir." and so forth. Gradgrind intimidates Sissy, giving her little confidence. Because of Sissy's timid and shy nature Gradgrind easily embarrasses Sissy with his intimidation "she would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time."

Sissy is contrasted with Bitzer who is dull, pale and lifeless, as Dickens says "the boy who was so light-eyed and light-haired that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white." Whereas his description of Sissy is "the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired she seemed to receive a deeper more lustrous colour from the sun." Bitzer is zombie like, he looks ill or even lifeless and has no opinion of his own, he is a slave to Gradgrind's facts. We can tell this from his description of a horse "Quadruped. Gramnivorous. 40 teeth. Sheds coat in spring."

Dickens uses a biblical language sometimes in `hard times'. For example, "say, good M'Choakumchild when from thy boilling store thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber fancy lurking within-or sometimes only maim him and distort him." This style of writing is good because it stands out well.

Dickens also writes philosophically, like when Gradgrind says "facts forbid," instead of heaven forbid, showing Gradgrind is so obsessed by facts they are his heaven. Dickens shows his moral view in `Hard Times' that Victorian schools are terrible and the teachers are horrible people. This novel, having `a moral to the story' is also like the biblical style writing.