Sunday, October 21, 2012
Hard Times:Discussion
Throughout the story Dickens uses beautiful language and he is very descriptive. One conversation I found beautiful was in the beginning of book three when Louisa and Sissy were talking, the morning after Louisa had her melt down. Louisa reveals to Sissy how unhappy she was and she felt that Sissy as going to be upset with her because she was lost and troubled. Instead Sissy simply embraces her and comforts her in her time of need. "In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like beautiful light upon the darkness of the other" (Dickens 220). The language used in this sentence is simply beautiful and it really shows the reader the compassion and love Sissy has. Louisa and her truly compliment one another and make each other better people. Louisa was completely lost and confused and Sissy was there for her and showed her "affection" and shed "beautiful light" on this darkness that Louisa said she felt!
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I also found another instance of beautiful and unique imagery used by Dickins. This example was presented in Book 2 when Louisa decides to visit her sick mother back at home. Louisa reflects upon how it has been so long since she has been there; her memories of her home were "cruel and cold" as Dickins writes, "Her remembrances of home and childhood, were remembrances of the drying up of every spring and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out" (192). Portraying Louisa's heart to a "fountain" creates at first a beautiful image, only until the reader sees it has been "dryed up." This reveals the struggles Louisa had as she grew up deprived of the wonders and happiness of a true childhood. We admire this truth through Dickins use of language here and throughout the text.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Dickens uses beautiful language, I also think he uses very dark language to signify the setting of the story. One of the darkest passages in the book occurs in Chapter one as Dickens is asserting the toxicity of the setting of Coketown. Dickens describes Coketown as a “town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled”(27). Rather than this passage being beautiful, Dickens writes a very dark perspective of Coketown that effectively establishes the type of environment in which he is going to develop his characters. At first Coketown sounds like a successful modern town with “machinery and tall chimneys” symbolizing a successful industrial community, this idea however is desecrated in the second half of the sentence when it is described that “interminable serpents of smoke” exist over the city that “never got uncoiled”. The serpents of smoke have great imagery value; it is easy for the reader to imagine enormous clouds of black serpents constricting the city and its inhabitants. Overall, this establishes the evil of this new industrial town, it is not a free and happy place where its inhabitants are allowed to be independent and think freely, on the contrary it constricts its inhabitants, and it never uncoils.
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