Life Issues in Charles Dickens Novel

There were many issues that Charles Dickens wanted to address in the novel because of the situation in Victorian times. Hard Times by Charles Dickens gives a picture of one of these issues which is the different social classes being represented by the characters in the book. Mr. Bounderby and Stephen Blackpool are great examples of the social issues happening in the Victorian period because there is a stark contrast between the lives of Stephen Blackpool and Mr. Bounderby.

Stephen's moral integrity is completely different from Mr.

Bounderby's. "Thousands of his compeers could talk much better than he, at any time. He was a good power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity" (HT 66). Stephen shows great conduct and loyalty making it easy to feel attached to him at the start of the book. Stephen does not act on the desperate love he has for Rachel because he is in a tough marriage to his alcoholic wife who takes all his money and then disappears for days at a time.

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"It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to his own" (HT 66). Not only does his personal life make you feel for him, but his work life also makes you feel for him more. He does not see himself as just a "Hand" (HT 66), he sees himself as a genuine human being.

So much so, that Stephen rejects the request to join the strike like his fellow workers because he does not think that that will improve the relationship between an employee and an employer. Disappointingly, the workers shun and ignore him leaving him actually alone. Despite all this, Stephen remains loyal, denying the demand from Bounderby to spy on them. He has never been just a "Hand" (HT 66) because regardless of any of the circumstances that he goes through, he stays true to what he knows and what he believes is right. He knows that what he wants is impossible to get for someone of his status, but he still goes about his day thinking there is something better.

Stephen's poverty shows a marked distinction with Mr. Bounderby's wealth. Stephen Blackpool works for Mr. Bounderby at his factory as a hardworking, honest man who is never given credit for the amount of work he does. Mr. Bounderby is a "rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and whatnot." (HT 20). All the money that he owns makes him blind to reality and to what is right or wrong. He has falsely claimed that he had come from nothing when he was a child, but instead of using the success and achievement of crawling to the top for good, he uses it to belittle the lower class. He is a "man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was a Bully of Humility" (HT 20). He dismisses the struggles of the lives the lower class has to face, which is shown when he completely denied Stephen's request for help to divorce his wife. Life for the lower class is worse than many people think. They are all trapped because they lack the wealth that they are working so hard to get. It seems as if the more they work, the harder life is for them. It's possible that no matter how hard or how much they work, they won't be able to "climb to the top" like Mr. Bounderby falsely proclaimed he did. The lower class strive every day to make a living, to support their families, and to do so much more and not get much in return. They have to think about how much money they have to save or how much money they have to spend to not become homeless. Mr. Bounderby doesn't have to worry about any of these things. He doesn't have to deal with any of it because he could spend his money wherever he goes. When Mr. Bounderby talks about his past, he is mocking the lower class. He is saying things that the lower class is actually going through, but in reality, he never went through any of it at all. He makes them look like big babies whenever they come to him about how bad things are getting at work for them. Mr. Bounderby is an arrogant, pompous man who could care less about the lives of any one of a lower status than him. He doesn't value anything except money and power. "Bounderby is an emblem of hypocrisy" (Grade, par. 3).

Both characters portray different social classes in the Victorian period. Stephen represents the lower class and Mr. Bounderby represents the middle class. Dickens describes Stephen as "A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which his iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a particularly intelligent man in his condition" (HT 66). Even though he is young, his years of persistent labor and dealing with his wife has taken a toll on him mentally, physically, and emotionally. Stephen is not able to divorce his wife that he does not love anymore because he doesn't have enough money to afford a divorce. Since he is just a "Hand" (HT 66), he is the first to be suspected of robbing the bank instead of Tom, who is not suspected until later because he is of a higher class. Tom Gradgrind accuses Stephen of robbing the bank just because he sees the opportunity to do so. Ironically, Tom is the one who robs the bank. Stephen is poor in wealth and lacks the lavish life that many people want, but he is rich in integrity, relationships, and love. Mr. Bounderby, on the other hand, is a complete opposite. "From the first sight, Josiah is an ordinary man but involving deeper in the essence of his character the reader may understand that he is completely self-centered since it is found out from the text that the man paid his mother money for her pretending that they are not acquainted. Such a nobleman didn't have any right to act like that, to be honest" (Just, par. 2). Mr. Bounderby being part of the growing middle class makes him so focused on money and power that when it comes to anything else, he is completely arrogant. He marries Louisa without even asking her to her face, but instead, he goes and asks her father. At first, his intentions for marrying Louisa is creepy, but then further in the novel, the reader will realize he only wants to marry Louisa for her upper-class status. He is incapable of giving the love and support that Louisa wants and when the marriage doesn't work out, he blames her for having feelings. When Mr. Bounderby dies, he dies on the streets of Coketown all alone. This shows that because of his conceited, arrogant nature, he never had anyone that actually loved him. He wasted his life caring about money and what his status is in society. Unlike Mr. Bounderby, Stephen dies a horrible, slow death, but is surrounded by the people that love him.

All in all, the stark difference between the lives of Stephen Blackpool and Mr. Bounderby show how everything about them affected the way they went about life. Dickens was never part of the lower class as a child, but he felt horrible for them. He knew something had to change about the different social classes and how the rich were using the poor. He knew the issue was that the rich were getting richer and poor were getting poorer by the minute and no one was doing anything about it. "Dickens tries to picture the real-life by representing the thoughts, feelings, and ways of living of characters from a variety of social classes"(Loncon 43-44). The poor was lacking in everything except hard work, love, compassion, and integrity and that's all they had. Stephen suffered for so long and nothing ever got better for him. One respected writer contends: "He's a tiny, insignificant cog in a vast, grinding machine. When he's inevitably crushed, on it grinds - but you remember his sweet-natured gleam and can't help shedding a tear at his passing"(Cavendish, par. 3). If Stephen and Mr. Bounderby had one thing in common, it would be that their lives never changed and their only escape was death.