HT:Analysis

In Hard Times, great lengths are taken to portray dreary Coketown as dark, colorless, and as lifeless as possible.  This pattern extends to the inhabitants of Coketown, whose very life seems to be drained from them, leaving only pale and “imminently practical” population. In line with this universal pattern in the text, any mention of appearance is accompanied by the colorlessness of their complexion. However, Dickens breaks this pattern in chapter nine of the second book (187-194) where Louisa finally returns to her childhood home to be at her mother’s deathbed.  The news is brought to Louisa by Bitzer who is only described as the pale boy and who—without any imagination—defined a horse in the first book.  Bitzer is the prime example of the threat that Dickens believes accompanies the utilitarianism seen in Coketown—mindless unthinking and lifeless individuals—and is comparable to the sickliness that seemed to continually drain the colorless dying Mrs. Gradgrind.  While the bleak monotony is present throughout the text, it is particularly poignant in this scene in order to draw a stark contrast to the youngest Gradgrind, Jane, who was raised by Sissy.  To Louisa’s wonderment, when comparing Jane to herself, she realizes that Jane has “a better and brighter face than hers had ever been”(193).  Raised by Sissy, (who always had more life and color about her) Jane posses a similar vibrancy and life demonstrated in Sissy and lacked by the rest of the Gradgrids and the town’s pale inhabitants.  Jane is clearly meant to stand out from the other well educated individuals with her brightness—a clear incongruity to the otherwise bleak town.  In any other town, the pale and lifeless individuals would seem incongruous while those like Jane and Sissy would seem the norm.  Dickens’ satire is therefore two-fold, with reversal of the norms demonstrated through complexion, and with Jane starkly standing out from the created set of norms in Coketown.  By creating this contrast, Dickens can point to the flaws of the society through the sickliness that is the norm in the town, while simultaneously pointing to the benefits of free thinking, using Sissy and Jane as the model.