Hard Times - Charles Dickens

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Résumé :
Hard Times takes place in the industrial town of Coketown having a memorable cast of characters such as Professor Gradgrind, the factory owner Bounderby, the beautiful Sissy Jupe and the noble Stephen Blackpool. In the beginning Mr. Gradgrind, a wealthy and retired merchant addresses a group of young students at his school in Coketown, England. He is rigid, self-centred. He teaches his pupils based on the practical experience and raises his children with this belief. This novel carries an influential message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens' novels. It exposes capitalist exploitation during the Industrial Revolution and a criticism of the philosophy of materialism....

Biographie:
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was a renowned English novelist and social critic, celebrated for his vivid characters and depictions of Victorian society. His iconic works, including A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations, highlight the struggles of the poor and advocate for social reform. Dickens remains one of the most influential writers in English literature....

Sommaire:
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea, England. His parents were middle-class and suffered financially. When Dickens was twelve years old, his family faced financial crisis, which forced him to quit school and work in a shoe polish manufacturing factory. Dickens's mother and siblings eventually joined him. Dickens continued to work at the factory for several months. In the factory the horrific conditions haunted him throughout his life. Dickens never forgot the day when a senior boy in the warehouse took it upon himself to instruct Dickens how to do his work more efficiently. As a young adult, Dickens worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. He perceived the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution. A collection of semi-fictional sketches entitled Sketches by Boz earned him recognition as a writer. Dickens began to make money from his writing when he published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers in 1836. The Pickwick Papers was hugely popular and Dickens became a literary celebrity at the age of twenty-five. Dickens's themes included wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, but after twenty years of marriage and their ten children, he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress many years his junior. Soon after, Dickens and his wife separated. Dickens remained a prolific writer to the end of his life, and his novels - Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Bleak House - continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. He died of a stroke in 1870, at the age of 58....