Montreal Dickens Fellowship Study Questions: “Hard Times”
December 7, 2021
Chapters 10 - 14
- Dickens keeps us in suspense wondering the identity of the “terrible woman”. Compare this cliff- hanging technique with that of today’s soap operas.
- What is your opinion of laws making divorce very difficult to obtain, available only with very stringent grounds, and obtainable only by the very rich. Compare this with today’s much more open divorce laws and the very high divorce rate.
- Who is the old woman that takes such a great interest in Bounderby? Can you guess? Why doesn’t Dickens reveal her identity?
- Do you think Stephen was fair to keep Rachel “hanging on” while there was no hope for their legal union?
- Analyze Stephen’s dream. “Hard Times” predated Freud yet Dickens appeared to have remarkable insight into the subconscious mind. Comment.
- Had Stephen’s wife taken poison (accidentally or on purpose) and Stephen not stopped her, would you have sympathized with him? Comment on this in terms of today’s thoughts on euthanasia, assisted suicide and crimes of passion. Would Stephen have been prosecuted and found guilty of murder then? Today?
- Comment on Dickens’s description of Time as the “Great Manufacturer”.
- Discuss how Mr. Gradgrind’s treatment of Sissy Jupe makes him a more sympathetic character. Do you like him?
- How do you think Dickens’s readers would have reacted to his scathing criticism of Parliament? How would his description of the political process stand up to Parliamentary government today?
- How does Dickens foreshadow the (unhappy) marriage of Louisa and Mr. Bounderby