How does Dickins use satirical techniques to reveal a message about the Industrial Revolution?

 Some Mouthwatering Quotes

"Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you." Book 2, Chap. 6

 "As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap." Book 1, Chap. 15

"Strange as it always is to consider any assembly in the act of submissively resigning itself to the dreariness of some complacent person, lord or commoner, whom three-fourths of it could, by no human means, raise out of the slough of inanity to their own intellectual level, it was particularly strange, and it was even particularly affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty in the main no competent observer free from bias could doubt, so agitated by such a leader." Book 2, Chap. 4

"Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what the people read in this library: a point whereon little rivers of tabular statements periodically flowed into the howling ocean of tabular statements, which no diver ever got to any depth in and came up sane." Book 1, Chap. 8

"She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went round it, peeping between the leaves at the lower windows. Most of them were open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but there were no lights yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden with no better effect." Book 2, Chap 11

Womens Role in Society

Throughout the text, some women are portrayed as being a positive influence upon society (rachael, Sissy), while other women are portyrayed as having a negative influence (Mrs. Sparsit). Analyze the role of women in Hard Times, and Dickens feeling of womens role within society.

Fire in Fahrenheit 451

Just as fire is a significant metaphor in Hard Times, it is also a large part of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451.

This ubiquitous symbol can be subject to a myriad of interpretations, which is evident in these two texts. While Dickens uses fire to represent an individual's (particularly Louisa's) spirit and livelihood (or lack thereof), fire in Fahrenheit 451 is a purely destructive element: it destroys knowledge, and ultimately, the complexities of humanity. Although fire serves two almost completely opposite functions in these novels, they are related in that--whether it is for good or for evil--both authors acknowledge the sheer power of fire as a catalyst of change.

Fire and Imgination

"The answer was so long in coming, though there was no indecision in it, that Tom went and leaned on the back of her chair, to contemplate, from her point of view, and see what he could make of it.

'Except that it is a fire,' said Tom, 'it looks to me as stupid and blank as everything else looks. What do you see in it? Not a circus?'"

 

Fire, since the start of book one, has been indicative of imagination and an inner yearning for more knowledge. Mr. Gradgrind in his classroom tries to remove each students individuality and fill them full of facts; he also attempts to remove this metaphorical "fire" from his children, but Louisa, his daughter, still attempts to fill herself with this forbidden knowledge. Throughout the novel Louisa finds comfort in staring into the fire which always seems to envelope her, the quote above shows this by saying "the fire which so engrossed [Louisa]."Her ability to look into the fire and learn more about herself reveals that Mr. Gradgrind failed in removing Louisa's individuality, and she can still use her imagination, represented through her understanding of the fire. However this is different for Tom, who for most of the novel obeyed the laws from his father. Thomas lacked the capacity to be creative because he questioned Louisa's logic when looking into the fire, "'Except that it is a fire,' said Tom, 'it looks to me as stupid and blank as everything else looks. What do you see in it? Not a circus?'" Toms inability to understand Louisa's connection to the fire reveals that he lacks imaginations since he has only followed the ideals of his father. The use of fire through Hard Times reveals the ability to a be creative and imaginative, harness by Louisa and lost in Tom.

Chapter 3

 

"There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl: yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression."

With its natural powers to change and destroy, fire is accented repetetively throughout the storyline.  Though the city of Coketown and its inhabitants are portrayed to be nothing more than dry or morose, sticking to nothing but "facts", Louisa, on the contrary, is a standout character, depicted as wholly separate to society, having the drive of "fire" within her, able to blossom from society and reform it as she does. But though her hunger of individualism, her fire, is vividly shown in the beginning of Book One, it is also evident that it is held back, just potential sparks with no kinder, a"fire with nothing to burn". This strife is caused by her father, Mr. Gradgrind, who constantly attempts to hold back Louisa's drive, thus constricting her individualism."

Fire in The Hunger Games

Fire is often used as symbol of reform and transformation; in the hunger games, a reform of the oppresive government - in Hard Times, a reform of the eduction system to a new creativity and thought focused form of education. Katniss, a symbol of the revolution to take place within her world, wears a dress during the "prelims" of the games that is covered in flames. Not only do the games transform Katniss into a symbol of hope to oppressed districts, they create a leader in Katniss, who, in later books, leads a revolution against the Capital. In both Hard Times and the Hunger Games, Fire is used as a symbol of change- by destroying the old to make room for the new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2sXXG3tTaI