Hard Times

231 Pages·2014·1.12 MB·English

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Reading Hard Times: Literature, History, and Education

Scott Ray

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in Education, The University of Auckland, 2014.
Abstract

Charles Dickens’s fiction has been credited with effecting social reforms, with bringing
about changes in understanding by the use of stories which are not factual. This thesis
follows a pathway into Dickens’s world of fact and fancy, looking for how a literary work
might relate to the fundamentals of human thought and how an examination of Hard
Times might add to our knowledge of the educational implications of literature. How
might fancy, as not-fact, influence human thought?
My examination of Hard Times considers the nature of the relationship between the
reader and the text from a perspective hinted at by Dickens. I begin with an examination
of existing studies from across disciplines, particularly biology and psychology, seeking a
possible physical source for the ability of non-factual information to influence human
thinking. The study of Hard Times begins with a history of the author and the influences
upon him; the times in which he lived and set the novel are examined, drawing heavily on
history and sociology. Throughout the thesis Paulo Freire’s early work has provided a
framework to assist the analysis of the text and Dickens’s depiction of his times.
Dickens’s life and personality shed light on his interests in education, and the philosophy
that he developed. A greater degree of historical accuracy in the representation of
educational issues than has been customarily attributed to the text is demonstrated.
Common ground is established between the early ideas of Paulo Freire and the
observations of Dickens, with special attention being given to the role of education as it is
controlled and utilised by the interests of industrial capitalism. Dickens’s remarkable
psychological insight into human behaviour is illustrated in an examination of the
relationship between Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby. Insights from Freire help
in the identification of their inauthentic dialogue as an allegory for the conflicted interests
of the state and the economic powers within it. Dickens, no theoretician, makes his case
against allowing the interests of business to redirect education into the production of
measurable outcomes, at the expense of human development. The final discussion on the
nature of fancy, including the evolutionary importance of narrative thought, demonstrates
that a literary work can indeed make a contribution to educational philosophy.
ii
Dedication

I am very pleased to be able to dedicate this work to my mum and dad; for lots of reasons
that they know, and that no-one else needs to. Just for being there when the wheels got a
bit wobbly. We got there in the end.

iii
Acknowledgements

It would be easy for me to say that without the assistance from my supervisors this thesis
would never have been completed—and it would be true enough. However it would be to
undervalue their input into my academic progress. Without them I would never have
begun. Both my main supervisor, Dr Maxine Stephenson, and my second supervisor,
Professor Peter Roberts, have been an important part of my life—academically and
personally—for the last few years. I have them to thank not only for their assistance with
this thesis, but for the journey through university. It was great to have good company,
thank you.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS v

1. INTRODUCTION 1
Different readers – different readings 3
One reader but two texts 6
Literature or narrative 7
Great books and good books 10
The evolution of a thesis 13
One slender track not overgrown with weeds 18
Why Freire and in what way? 20
And so it goes 27
Chapter summary and organisation of the thesis 32
2. FOOTPRINTS OF THE TIGER 41
An early history of evolutionary narrative(s) 42
Bird brains and crocodile tears 47
Hearing the words of the Raven 52
In the forests of the night 55
Reading the world 59
Evolutionary baggage and cultural cargo 63
In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes? 66
Muddy footprints in the Fairy Palace 69

v
3. NOT A LITERARY BOUNDERBY 75
Consulting the chimneys of the Coketown works 81
From reader to writer 88
A learned and distinguished man 98
Harder Times 104
4. THE TIMES BEHIND HARD TIMES 109
Revolutionary times 118
A striking change: the key-note and coming to blows 124
A visit to Preston 134
A house divided 138
Ah yes, but what to teach? 139
5. JOSIAH BOUNDERBY: THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE 152
Character and observation 153
Practical Art and educational good taste 156
A man devoid of sentiment 164
Josiah Bounderby … and what not? 170
An economy of effort 173
A marriage made in a ‘fairy palace’ 178
6. FACT AND FANCY: THE EVOLVING NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE 185
A word of uncertain meaning 185
The philosophy of a parson 191
A pedestrian girl from a horse riding circus 196
7. IN TWO FIELDS OF ACTION 201
Reasoning animals 202
The utility of fancy 206
No business in education 209
What now for these times? 212
LIST OF REFERENCES 214
vi
1. Introduction

This introduction is almost as much a personal introduction as it is an introduction to my
thesis. That is because this journey has been a particularly long one for me, and many of
the ideas represented here have grown as they travelled with me. However, for almost as
long as I can remember reading has been associated with literacy, with education, with
schooling, and with pleasure. I was lucky; all my life I have enjoyed reading, so it was a
childhood joy not a task. I still remember the sense of achievement I felt when I finished
Enid Blyton’s Fifteen Minute Tales1; it was my first book without pictures. At an age at
which John Stuart Mill had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis, the whole of
Herodotus, and was moving on to read Plato and Demothenes, I began to read Biggles2
books. I learnt from this that there was a hierarchy of literary worthiness, and that some
books were mysteriously ‘better’ than others; Biggles books were not available through
the public libraries. The librarian did not say that they had failed some test of virtue or
merit, just that they were unsuitable material for a library. Nevertheless, I read them; I
tracked them down in second hand bookshops, and at school fairs, and bought them. I
thrilled to the adventures of this most English of heroes, particularly those of his early
days as a fighter pilot in the RFC during the Great War. Some of the attitudes that were
represented in Biggles are no longer acceptable. However, for me at the time, James
Bigglesworth was a hero who embodied the principles of loyalty, courage, and fair play.

Importantly, the battles, moral and physical, of Biggles took place in my imagination
rather than only on the pages of the books I read. To share his adventures required some
identification with his values. The author, the self-styled Captain W.E. Johns, may have
invented the character, but it was the imagination of thousands of small boys that gave
him life. Perhaps, if the time comes that small boys no longer read the Biggles books, and

1 Fifteen Minute Tales (Blyton, 1936) was an anthology of short stories taken from a series of cheap books
called Sunny Stories for Little Folk, which was edited by Enid Blyton —in fact Blyton wrote each story,
including rewriting popular tales like Robin Hood—and ran for 250 issues between 1926 and 1936.
2 A series of over ninety books following the aviation career of the fictional James Bigglesworth, including
his early days in the RFC. Biggles Learns to Fly (Johns, 1935/1965) is a collection of short stories that
captures some of the tensions of the early years of air combat in the First World War. It seems to have
been written for an older reader than the later texts. Biggles, as he is known, always fights fair and wins
his battles honourably.
1
no longer keep him alive in their imagination, he will pass away. I think I can see him
now, a small figure in an ancient biplane, disappearing over the horizon of changing
childhoods. A fictional character must always be like the fairies in Peter Pan for whom a
child’s lack of belief meant death; it is only the mind of the reader that gives life to
literary characters, whether they be Tinkerbelle and Biggles, or Anna Karenina and the
brothers Karamazov. As a child I was aware that my imagination was a special place
where stories came to life and where fairies and fighter pilots could share the same space
without conflict. I would lie reading each night, discovering new worlds and adventures,
adding new experiences to my increasing store of childhood wonder.

I lived in a wonderful world; a night time world, under the bedcovers by torchlight, long
after the lights were out. What adventures the books revealed: heroes and villains, pirates
and princesses, drama and death. What a life I had! I shared The Coral Island3 with
Ralph, Martin and Peterkin and discovered

footprints in the sand with Robinson Crusoe4. I
was recreated as Allan Quatermain and so I
rediscovered King Solomon’s Mines5 and
finally faced my own mortality in Allan
Quatermain6. The first woman I ever fell in
love with was the fabulous She-who-must-be-
obeyed, Ayesha in She7, and if I later felt
somehow cheated that Rumpole of the Bailey8
had reduced this majesty to an epithet for a
disappointed housewife can I be blamed? Such
evidence for the enduring power of fiction
seemed less important than the overthrow of
such a queen. I watched Tarzan9 grow into
manhood among the great apes and then go on
to raise questions about the nature of a (Gorbunova, 2010)

3 Ballantyne (1858)
4 Defoe (1719/2001)
5 Rider Haggard (1885)
6 Rider Haggard (1887a)
7 Rider Haggard (1887b)
8 Mortimer (1978)
9 Burroughs (1914)
2
gentleman. I was Christopher Carey as he fell, doing his duty, against Napoleon in
Ronald Welch’s Captain of Foot. By the time I had left school I had scraped through
University Entrance on my second attempt, but more importantly, I had marched with
Caesar’s legions, and fought against him too. I had crossed the deserts of the American
west, and walked down the dark alleys of Sam Spade’s San Francisco. However, I was
soon to learn that the world of my imagination was a negotiated space not an absolute. A
book could seem different to another reader.

Different readers – different readings

At some point, I watched the filmed version of Alistair MacLean’s thriller The Guns of
Navarone. It starred Gregory Peck as the main character, a New Zealander named Keith
Mallory speaking with a disconcertingly American accent. Earlier, in my last year of
primary school, my mother had bought me a copy of the book through the Scholastic
Book Club. I didn’t read it immediately, but a year or two later I did so. It was more
demanding than Biggles, but more rewarding as well. So it was that I climbed the storm
battered cliffs of Navarone with Mallory as surely as I had learned to fly a Sopwith Pup
with Biggles. However, although the story in the book and that of the movie were much
the same, there were important differences between the two; the characters of my
imagination were not those that appeared on screen. Looking back I now see that
Anthony Quinn’s rendition of Colonel Andrea Stavros has become my memory of the
character in the book. In itself, this seems to suggest something both about his
performance, and about the nature of memory. In a similar vein, another of my favourite
books at about that same time was When Eight Bells Toll10. I recently reread the book, and
I watched the movie again; I loved the book and hated the movie. I can still remember the
opening pages of the book, a wryly written rambling dissertation by the main character on
the destructive effects of the Colt 45 – as he came to grips with the fact that one was
pointed at him. The gun remained in the film, but it was simply a gun. Neither the tension
nor the humour had survived the transition from imagination to film. How was it that so
often a book was more exciting, more vivid, more memorable, and somehow more real
than its screen adaptation? I cannot pretend for one moment that this was the beginning of

10 MacLean (1966/2005)
3