Social Problem Novel Flashcards
(44 cards)
Evidence of the conditions for the poor in Hard Times (3)
- “the innermost fortifications of that ugly citadel”
- “Killing airs and gases”
- “Narrow courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets”
Evidence of good conditions for the rich in Hard Times (2)
- “in the formal drawing room of Stone Lodge, standing on the hearthrug, warming himself before the fire, Mr Bounderby”
- “Serene floor clothed apartment”
Evidence of Barton’s disdain for the rich in Mary Barton (2)
Barton stands before a shop window filled with “haunches of venison, Stilton cheeses, moulds of jelly”
BUT
“returned home with a bitter spirit of wrath in his heart, to see his only boy a corpse”
Opposing descriptions of money between rich & poor in Mary Barton (2)
“He went upstairs for his better coat, and his one, gay red-and-yellow silk pocket-handkerchief, his jewels, his plate, his valuables, these were. He went to the pawn shop; he pawned them for five shillings”
VS
“The younger Mr. Carson […] got up and pulled five shillings out of his pocket, which he gave to Wilson as he passed him, for the poor fellow”
Evidence of difficulties for the poor in Jude the Obscure
“Many of the thatched and dormered dwellinghouses had been pulled down of late years, and many trees felled on the green”
Evidence of regional dialect in Mary Barton and implications (2 + 1)
- “I were patient wi’her. I tried to wean her fra’t ower and ower agen”
- “The more fool you, I think”
–> Displays the limiting of the working class voice, and thus the necessity for Gaskell to try to interpret and translate it (and the struggles of the poor) to a literate readership
Evidence of the limitation of the working class voice in Hard Times (3)
-Crony Union representatives speak on behalf of the “hands” in Hard Times
→ Continuously interrupts and opposes what Stephen has to say
“Oh my friends, the down-trodden friends of Coketown” - spoken by the delegate
VS
“Not a word was spoken, not a sound audible in the building” from the hands
Quotes on education in Hard Times (1)
“Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.”
Quotes on prohibition of education and professions in Jude the Obscure (3)
- “Intellect at Christminster is new wine in old bottles”
- “New doctors emerged, their red and black gowned forms passing across Jude’s vision like inaccessible plants across and object glass”
- Biblioll College: “Sir, I have read your letter with interest; and, judging from your description of yourself as a workingman, I venture to think that you will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade”
Quotes on Mary Barton on the lack of discourse between classes (1)
John Barton: “As long as I live I shall curse them as so cruelly refused to hear us; but I’ll speak of it no more”
Evidence of alternative education in Jude the Obscure (1)
Tinker Taylor: “I always saw there was more to be learnt outside a book than in”
Evidence of the failure of education in Hard Times (1)
“I had proved my - my system to myself, and I have rigidly administered it; and I must bear responsibility of its failures”
Difference in morality between rich & poor in Hard Times (2 vs 1)
Mr. Sleary: “The thquire (A) thtood (B) by you (C), Thethelia, and I’ll (C) thtand (B) by the thquire (A)
Stephen:“I were patient wi’her.”
B: (“The more fool you, I think” Said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to his wine-glass.)
S: “I were very patient wi’her. I tried to wean her fra ‘t ower and ower agen.”
VS
Bounderby to Bitzer: “Have you a heart?”
Bitzer: “The circulation, Sir […] couldn’t be carried without one”
Equalising force of death in Jude the Obscure (1 + significance)
Little Father Time’s murder-suicide of the other two children because “we are too menny”
–> Damningly signifies the equalising force of death
Metafiction in Hard Times (1)
” ‘Show me a dissatisfied Hand, and I’ll show you a man that’s fit for anything bad, I dont care it it is’
Another of the popular fictions of Coketown which some pains had been taken to disseminate - and which some people really believed”
Evidence of limitation of imagination in Hard Times (2)
“Sissy is not a name. Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.”
“No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!”
Emphasis upon reality in Hard Times (4)
Gradgrind: “Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality - in fact? Do you?”
“board of fact […] commissioners of fact […] people of fact”
Description of town people in capitalist terms (4)
Bounderby had a “metallic laugh”
and
“made out of a coarse material”
Tom->Loo: “That’s a capital girl”
“His [Bounderby’s] perplexity augmented at compound interest”
Town’s dismissal of the circus in Hard Times (2)
Gradgrind: “no young people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses”
Gradgrind: “An idle imagination”
Evidence of superiority of the Circus & the hands (2 vs 1)
“catch knives and balls, twirl handbasins, ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing”
Bounderby to Bitzer: “Have you a heart?”
Bitzer: “The circulation, Sir […] couldn’t be carried without one”
VS
Mr. Sleary: “The thquire (A) thtood (B) by you (C), Thethelia, and I’ll (C) thtand (B) by the thquire (A)
&
“He [Stephen] was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord Chesterfield* could not have taught his son in a century”
Chesterfield embarked on the Grand Tour of the Continent, to complete his education as a nobleman, by exposure to the cultural legacies of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to become acquainted with his aristocratic counterparts and the polite society of Continental Europe
Circus dismissal of the town in Hard Times (1)
Sleary: “They can’t be alwyath a working, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a learning
Sociopolitical critique in Hard Times (5)
Sissy: “I thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine”
Narrator: “I entertain a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked as any people upon whom the sun shines […] I would give them a little more play”
“The good samaritan was a bad economist”
“deaf honourable gentlemen, dumb honourable gentleman, blind honourable gentlemen, lame honourable gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen”
“He professes morality. Well; all sorts of humbugs profess. From the house of Commons to the House of Correction”
Conflation between reality and fantasy in Hard Times (4)
“Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact everywhere in the immaterial”
“Dream or reality, he [Stephen] had no voice, nor had he power to stir.”
“fictions of Coketown” repeated throughout the novel
“dreaming smoke vanishing into the air”
Arguing over the voice in Hard Times & Significance (Link to truth & meaning) (5 + 3)
(Same page)
Gradgrind -> Bounderby: “I hoped you would have taken a different tone”
B -> G: “you have had your say, I believe. I heard you out; hear me out”
B -> G: “That’s plain speaking”
G -> B: “Hear me out”
-> Confusion between what is said & what is truth, conflation between appearance & reality
(Next page from above ^)
B -> G: “Till I have said all I mean to say”
G -> B: “What do I mean, Bounderby”
B -> G: “I mean…”
