Sowing: siembra
Reaping: cosecha
Garnering: ganancia
GROUP 1
What sets of oppositions do you find in the opening chapters of Hard Times? For example,
"fact" and "imagination." What is "industry" contrasted with? What are fairy stories
contrasted with? What else?
What kind of an education do the children at Mr. Gradgrind's school receive? What kind of
an education does their teacher have? Why don't the Gradgrind children attend this
school?
Why does Dickens describe the industry in Coketown with animal metaphors? Why are the
factories described as "fairy palaces"?
How is "old family" vs. "new money" depicted in Mrs. Sparsit and Mr. Bounderby?
Why doesn't Sissy understand Political Economy?
6- Why are the workers referred to as "hands"?
GROUP 2
7. Why can't Stephen Blackpool divorce his wife?
8. Why does Louisa agree to marry Bounderby? What is their honeymoon like?
I - What kind of working conditions are implied by the capitalists' complaints that open
Book 2?
2. What kind of morality does Bitzer exhibit?
3. Why does James Harthouse come to Coketown?
4. How pleasant is it to have dinner with Bounderby?
GROUP 3
5. What kind of morality does young Tom Gradgrind exhibit?
6. How does the union leader, Slackbridge, treat Stephen Blackpool? Why does this initially
delight Bounderby? Why doesn't Bounderby stay happy?
7. What does Louisa learn by visiting Stephen?
8. Why does Harthouse want to seduce Louisa? Why should Louisa be interested in him?
9. Why is suspicion for the bank robbery thrown toward Stephen?
10. What is the unspoken conflict between Mrs. Sparsit and Bounderby?
GROUP 4
11. What does Mrs. Gradgrind learn on her deathbed? How does Mr. Gradgrind attend to
her funeral?
12- What does "Mrs. Sparsit's Staircase" mean, metaphorically?
13. Why doesn't Louisa consummate her affair with Harthouse?
What enables Sissy to take charge now?
2. What does it mean when Bounderby associates Louisa with the Hands?
3. Why did Bounderby lie about his background?
WHOLE CLASS:
Hard Times is a novel about the social condition of poverty, but very few of its major characters
are actually poor and comparatively little time is spent with the poor characters. With that in
mind, do you think the book does an effective job of shaping our view of poverty? Why or why
not?
Think about the character of Bounderby. How might this character fit with Dickens’s social
program to explode the myth of the self-made man?
Hard Times begins and ends with a meeting between Mr. Sleary and Mr. Gradgrind. How are the
meetings different? What changes in Mr. Gradgrind’s character and values do we see between his
first and last encounter with the circus folk?
Discuss the character of Stephen Blackpool. How does he represent the poor Hands in Hard
Times? Do you think it is an accurate representation? Is it meant to be?
