Essay on Dickens and education in the opening chapters of Hard Times
In the opening chapters of Hard Times, Dickens depicts Coketown’s educational system in a disapproving manner. This is achieved by the narrative style, the characters, and the use of humour in the text, all of which present the schooling of children in a utilitarian society satirically.
The titles used by Dickens for the novel’s chapters ridicule the teaching methods depicted in the text. The first chapter is called ‘The One thing Needful’, and the second ‘Murdering the Innocents’. These titles are both quotes from the Bible, and therefore mock the importance that educators such as Gradgrind attach to factual knowledge by implying that it is their god. However, while Dickens is humorous in depicting schooling, he is also alarmed by it: the title ‘Murdering the Innocents’ suggests his fear that children will die spiritually as a result of an education that forbids ‘fancy’ and turns them to the false god of Gradgrind’s ‘Facts’.
The danger of utilitarian education resulting in soulless people is seen from the novel’s first chapter. Gradgrind is not named in this chapter, and is referred to repeatedly as ‘the speaker’ in a manner that is as monotonous as his own insistence on ‘nothing but Facts’. The narrative’s reluctance to name Gradgrind indicates the character’s lack of personality. This is emphasized by Gradgrind echoing the unnamed gentleman’s chorus of ‘Fact, fact, fact!’ as though there was no distinction between the two people.
When Gradgrind first addresses the class, he uses the metaphor of ‘planting’ facts and tells M‘Choakumchild to ‘root out everything else’. It is an allegory that is unimaginative and not beautiful, but it is useful in conveying Gradgrind’s idea that children are resources for future exploitation like fields in which seeds are planted. Gradgrind’s talk, ‘inflexible’ and ‘dictatorial’, prepares the children for life in a society in…
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Tags: Dickens, Education, Gradgrind, schooling, utilitarian society
