Hard Times Essay, Research Paper

Utilitarianism

“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely

twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive.

Sheds coat in spring……” A perfect example of a product of

utilitarian education, Bitzer defines a horse off the top of his

head in a split second. Utilitarianism is the assumption that

human beings act in a way that highlights their own self

interest. It is based on factuality and leaves little room for

imagination. Dickens provides three vivid examples of this

utilitarian logic in Hard Times. The first; Mr. Thomas

Gradgrind, one of the main characters in the book, was the

principal of a school in Coketown. He was a firm believer in

utilitarianism and instilled this philosophy into the students at

the school from a very young age, as well as his own

children. Mr. Josiah Bounderby was also a practitioner of

utilitarianism, but was more interested in the profit that

stemmed from it. At the other end of the perspective, a

group of circus members, who are the total opposite of

utilitarians, are added by Dickens to provide a sharp

contrast from the ideas of Mr. Bounderby and Mr.

Gradgrind.

Thomas Gradgrind Sr., a father of five children, has lived his

life by the book and never strayed from his philosophy that

life is nothing more than facts and statistics. He has

successfully incorporated this belief into the school system of

Coketown, and has tried his best to do so with his own

children. The educators see children as easy targets just

waiting to be filled with information. They did not consider,

however, the children?s need for fiction, poetry, and other

fine arts that are used to expand children?s minds, all of

which are essential today in order to produce well-rounded

human beings through the educational process. One has to

wonder how different the story would be if Gradgrind did

not run the school. How can you give a utilitarian man such

as Gradgrind such power over a town? I do like how

Dickens structures the book to make one ask obvious

questions such as these. Dickens does not tell us much about

the success of the other students of the school besides

Bitzer, who is fairly successful on paper, but does not have

the capacity as a person to deal with life?s everyday

struggles. Gradgrinds two oldest children, Tom and Louisa,

are examples of how this utilitarian method failed miserably.

These children were never given the opportunity to think for

themselves, experience fun things in life, or even use their

imaginations. True, they are smart people in the factual sense

but do not have the street smarts to survive. Tom is a young

man who, so fed up with his father?s strictness and

repetition, revolts against him and leaves home to work in

Mr. Bounderby?s bank. Tom, now out from under his

fathers wing, he begins to drink and gamble heavily.

Eventually, to get out of a deep gambling debt, he robs a

bank and is forced to flee the area. When Bitzer realizes that

Tom has robbed the bank and catches him, Mr. Gradgrind

begs him to let Tom go, reminding him of all of the hard

work that was put on him while at the school. Ironically

Bitzer, using the tools of factuality that he had learned in

Gradgrinds school, replies that the school was paid for, but

it is now over and he owes nothing more. I think this is

extremely funny how, at a time of need, Gradgrind?s

educational theory has backfired in his face. I think Dickens

put this irony in as a comical device but also to show how

ineffective the utilitarian method of teaching is. Louisa, unlike

Tom, does get along with her father. She even agrees to

marry Mr. Bounderby, even though she does not love him,

in order to please her father. She stays in the marriage with

Bounderby, and goes about life normally and factually, until

she is faced with a dilemma and panics. Mr. James

Harthouse, a young, good looking guy, is attracted to Louisa

and deceivingly draws her attraction to him. She does not

know what to do since she has never had feelings of her

own before. Her father never gave her the opportunity to

think for herself, or even love someone. This is why Louisa

goes frantic and ends up crying in her fathers lap. She has

always been told what to do and what is ?right?, and now

even her father is stumped. For the first time in the whole

novel, Mr. Gradgrind strays from the utilitarian philosophy

and shows compassion for his daughter and her feelings.

One must think that he is beginning to doubt his philosophy

after seeing it backfire in his face more than once.

Josiah Bounderby is another prime example of utilitarianism.

He is one of the wealthiest people in Coketown; owning a

bank and a factory, but is not really a likable person. His

utilitarian philosophy is similar to Gradgrinds in the sense that

factuality is the single most important virtue that one could

posses. Mr. Bounderby maintained throughout the story his

utilitarian views, which basically stated that nothing else is

important besides profit. Being the owner of both a factory

and a bank, Bounderby employs many workers, yet seems

to offer them no respect at all. He refers to the factory

workers as “Hands,” because that is all they are to him.

Bounderby often states that workers are all looking for

“venison, turtle soup, and a golden spoon,” while all they

really want is decent working conditions and fair wage for

their work. He is not concerned about his employees as

human beings, but how much their hands can produce during

the workday, resulting with money in his pocket. When one

of his workers, Stephen Blackpool came to Bounderby?s

house asking for advice about his bad marriage, he was

treated as inferior just because of his social status. Dickens

portrayed the scene as one in which Blackpool was on a

level five steps below Bounderby and his associates because

he was a lowly worker who was obviously much less

educated than them. It almost seemed like they would not

even take him seriously because he was such. Blackpool

was told that he could not divorce his wife because it would

be against the laws of England. Later in the book,

Bounderby divorces his wife. This shows that wealth played

a large role in determining the social classes that people

were in and the privileges they had. This was definitely unfair

but the social classes were structured in a way which

allowed those who had money to look down upon those

who were less fortunate. Generally, those who were not

well-educated did not have any money, while the

well-educated ones such as Bounderby and Gradgrind were

wealthy. The people who knew the factual information,

(utilitarians) were successful, while those who did not were

reduced to working in the factories of the utilitarians.

Dickens paints a vivid picture of this inequality between

social classes and shows he does not care much for it. It is

fairly easy to see that Dickens holds a contempt for

Bounderby and the utilitarian philosophy he carries. The

book details the philosophy, then shows how miserably it

failed. How much different would their lives be if the town

was not run by utilitarians.

Dickens cleverly added in circus people as a contrast to the

utilitarian approach to life. The circus people could be called

the total opposite of utilitarianism. If one element of the book

stands out in my mind, it would be this one. The circus

people are simple, open-minded human beings whose goal

in life is to make people laugh. Dickens portrays them as a

step up from the “Hands” but still close to the bottom in the

social structure. These people are hated by Gradgrind,

Bounderby and other utilitarians because they represent

everything that is shunned in utilitarianism such as love,

imagination, and humor. Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus

man, was taken in by the Gradgrinds to live in their home.

She is representative of the circus people with her innocence

and free-will, qualities which are lacking in the lives of the

people around her. Just by her presence, her goodness rubs

off on the people around her, although it is too late for most

of them. Even after numerous attempts to force utilitarianism

into her by Mr. Gradgrind and his school, she is still the

fun-loving girl that she always was because she grew up

living with “normal” people who thought for themselves and

loved each other. She influenced these qualities on the

youngest Gradgrind daughter Jane, who led a much more

enjoyable and fulfilling life than her older sister Louisa

because of those influences. Jane is not spoken of much until

the end of the book but I like the way Dickens showed the

effects of the utilitarian lifestyle as opposed to the

non-utilitarian lifestyle. The utilitarians ultimately ended with a

great downfall because their narrow-minds could not endure

the pressures that life can impose on oneself. The people

that did not fall victim to the utilitarian trap were able to live

their lives happily and freely, able to love, laugh, and use

their imagination; which is the way life ought to be lived.

Dickens obviously had a definitive opinion of the way life

should be lived and did an excellent job of depicting it. His

method was somewhat indirect in the sense that he worked

backwards to get his point across, but turned out to be very

effective as the story progressed. Most of the story revolved

around utilitarianism and the study of cold hard facts, but

when the character flaws began to surface as a result of this

philosophy, Dickens is quick to emphasize them. One

actually sees the main character of the book and firm

supporter of utilitarianism, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind,

experience the faults of his practice and begin to stray from

it. Now, after watching his life fall apart, maybe he wishes he

were in the circus.