Representing the fading aristocracy of 19th century England is Dickens’ character, Mrs. Sparsit. … Just as Dickens uses the character Bounderby to represent capitalistic factory owners, he too uses the character Mr . Gradgrind , described in chapter two as “A man of realities. … Mr . Gradgrind is the owner of a school which operates under …
Mr . M’Choakumchild, a teacher in Gradgrind ‘s model school, is an advocate of the Gradgrind system. Dickens says that he might have been a better teacher had he known less. Slackbridge, symbolized as the false prophet to the laboring class, is the trade-union agitator. Mrs. Pegler is the mysterious woman who shows great interest in Mr . Bounderby.
I have selected three characters from Dickens’s novel Hard Times that represent the three spheres of the Victorian society to address the position of women in it. They are Louisa Gradgrind representing the rational middle class, Cecilia Jupe representing the emotional lower class and Mrs. Sparsit representing the falling aristocracy . II.
Her impact on the Gradgrind family is extreme, as she allows Mr . and Mrs. Gradgrind to recognize that imagination is the key to happiness, not fact. While the relationships throughout the novel are often one-sided, the influence that each character has over others is essential in the demise of fact and the rise of critical thinking.
If Stephen represents the poor and Bounderby and Gradgrind represent the wealthy middle class, Mrs. Sparsit and Harthouse are satires of the aristocracy . Dependent on Bounderby for her well-being, Mrs. Sparsit is adept at manipulating her circumstances around her belief that she is a great lady wronged by others.
