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Im writing an A.S level English Lit paper on humor in Hard Times only i have a problem with spotting it! Which as you can proberably tell isnt a good idea! Any one hav any ideas?
If ppl could plz help me with with this request itwould gratly be appreciated!
hey im having the same problem. i hope that you found some resources or help somewhere. and maybe you wouldnt mind passing them on? :)
If it still matters six years later...Dickens was making fun of almost everything in that book, but especially industrialism and the idea that facts are all that matters. Comparing factories to elephants would be one example.
The opening chapters where Gradgrind and McChoakum shove Facts down the throats of young pupils is an example of humour. Also, the description of Coketown, which becomes more bleak and depressing as the novel goes on.
Mr Bounderby's continual banging on about his hard upbringing appears to anticpate Pythonesque Four Yorkshiremen sketch by over 100 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo
This bit from chapter 15 amused me.
"'My dear Louisa', said her father, 'I prepared you last night to give me your serious attention in the conversation we are now going to have together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say, so much justice to the education that you have received, that I have perfect confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are not romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone, I know you will view and consider what I am going to communicate.'
He waited, as if he would have been glad that she had said something. But she never said a word.
'Louisa my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has been made to me.'
Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, 'a proposal of marriage, my dear'. To which she returned, without any visible emotion whatever:
'I hear you, father, I am attending, I assure you.'
'Well!' said Mr Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the moment at a loss, 'you are even more dispassionate than I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have it in charge to make?"