A Tale of The Tub assignment

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 12

Paper : Neoclassical Literature 

Semester : M.A sem 1

Topic : A Tale of The Tub by Swift 

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction 

Jonathan Swift's Tale of the Tub is a brilliant failure. It is a prose satire intended as a defence of the Anglican church, but it was widely interpreted by contemporary readers as an attack on all religion. At the time of writing it, Swift was a junior Anglican clergyman hoping for substantial preferment in the Church. The appearance of the Tale, and its assumed message, was a serious obstacle to his promotion. 

One of the things that makes the Tale difficult to interpret for that the work attacks multiple things of things at the same time: it's an allegory about religious differences it's a satire on pedantry and false scholarship it's a parody of the contemporary book trade it has attached to it two further treatises, the 'Battle of the Books', and the 'Mechanical Operation of the Spirit'. 

◆Title of The Novel:-

The first thing that's puzzling about A Tale of A Tub is its title. The preface explains that it is the practice of seamen when they meet a whale to throw out an empty tub to divert it from attacking their ship. The whale that this tub is thrown out for most obviously represents Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Swift's tub is intended to distract Hobbes and other critics of the church and government from picking holes in their weak points. 

A Tale of a Tub was published anonymously. But unlike with those later works, Swift was obsessively concerned with preserving the anonymity of his authorship of the Tale. His authorship of the Tale was never publicly acknowledged in his lifetime, nor did it appear in authorised editions of his collected works. 

But although Swift vigorously maintained the fiction of anonymity in relation to A Tale of a Tub, never at any point did he try to suppress the book as a whole; he only tried to obscure his direct connection with it. But despite the fact that he was desperate that no one should ever know that he wrote A Tale of a Tub, he also seems to have been extraordinarily proud of his satire. The one comment that we have on record from Swift about the Tale comes from a letter transcribed for the Earl of Orrery: 

"There is no doubt but that he was Author of the Tale of the Tub. He never owned it: but as he one day made his Relation Mrs Whiteway read it to him, he made use of This expression. 'Good God! What a flow of imagination had I, when I wrote this".

There is a strange paradox here: Swift wanted to disavow his connection with the work, yet at the same time he wanted the genius evident in the satire to be recognised as his. 

◆Religious Orthodoxy :-

Swift says in the 'Apology' that was added to the 1710 edition that A Tale of a Tub was partly intended to attack the religious groups that he saw as threatening the hegemony of the Anglican church. In the Tale, Swift uses the analogy of the three brothers 

• MartiN [The Anglican Church]

• Peter [The Catholic Church]

• Jack [The Low Church, or Dissenters]

In doing so, he is trying to demonstrate that the spiritual practices of the Catholic Church and dissenting sects were based on a false interpretation of the true Word, the Bible. However, the sweep of Swift's irony in the book, and, the destabilising and confusing nature of its changes in satiric personae meant that many of his contemporaries read the Tale as an attack all religion. 

Swift's decision to publish the apology in the revised edition of 1710 likely is related to his anxiety about his career at this time, and the Tale's potential to compromise his position. Late 1710, was perhaps the most exciting and promising time in Swift's career he was being courted by the rising Tory leader Robert Harley to join the Tory cause, and power and importance seemed imminent. Swift was to believe for the rest of his life that his failure to secure the ecclesiastical promotions that he wanted was due to influential disapproval of the perceived irreligious tendencies of A Tale of a Tub. 

◆Authorship and Identity :-

If we think there may be more to Swift's desire to remain guarded about his authorship of A Tale of a Tub than just its potential to compromise his rise to power. Swift seems to be ambivalent about his ownership of the work not just in the original text of 1704, but also in the 'Apology' added in 1710. The 'Apology' is a very strange document: it purports to be a straightforward clearing up of unnecessary misunderstandings, but it actually fails to clear anything up at all. 

It is supposed to be an intervention in the controversy over the intended meaning of the Tale. However, the author of the 'Apology' does not admit to being Swift, or even the author of the Tale. Swift creates a third person figure that seems to ventriloquise a defence of the work that is part on behalf of an enraged and violated author, and part an outsider coming to his rescue. The apology refers consistently to the author, saying that 

'the author cannot conclude this apology without…' or 'the author observes'. 

But the tale is complicated by the Apology's use of an 'I' in it, a figure that is differentiated from the author. 

 ◆Originality :-

The idea of originality is vexed by A Tale of a Tub. As we've seen here, Swift both dismisses the importance of authorship and fiercely defends it. These ambiguous and contradictory concerns are is mirrored within the text, which in some ways it seems to push the boundaries of what can be called an original. A Tale of a Tub is profoundly postmodern in its intertextuality, its play with literary forms, and its changes in speaker and genre and that constantly undermine readerly expectations of the text. It parodies bookseller's catalogues, scholarly treatises, scientific works, effusive dedicatory prose, and it borrows, magpie-like, from a wide and disparate range of sources. A Tale of a Tub is a patchwork of unattributed quotations to Dryden, Marvell, Richard Bentley, Thomas Browne, and Joseph Addison. 

These ideas about originality are reflected in the Tale's relationship to one of its major influences. The text that the Tale most explicitly situates itself in relation to is one that also poses problems of classification as 'original work' John Dryden's Translation of the Works of Virgil in English, of 1697. Dryden's Virgil was the big publishing sensation of the decade. The former laureate issued his definitive version of the great Latin's epic poems, and Dryden's Virgil remained the standard edition until well into the twentieth century. 

◆Parody and Allegory :-

In addition to the 'digressions' that form a satire on modern learning and print culture, A Tale of a Tub's more obvious satire is that on abuses in religion. The satire works through the allegory of the three brothers: Martin, Peter, and Jack. Martin symbolises the Anglican Church (from Martin Luther) Peter symbolizes the Roman Catholic Church; and Jack (from John Calvin) symbolises the Dissenters. Their father leaves each brother a coat as a legacy, with strict orders that the coats are on no account to be altered. The sons gradually disobey his injunction, finding excuses for adding shoulder knots or gold lace, according to the prevailing fashion. Martin and Jack quarrel with the arrogant Peter (the Reformation), and then with each other, and then separate. As we might expect, Martin is by far the most moderate of the three, and his speech in section six is by the sanest thing anyone has to say in the Tale.

Both parody and allegory work by implicitly, or explicitly, comparing one sort of book with another. As a broad generalisation, they are concerned with intertextual relationships, and how you can use one text to invoke or critique another. But the distinction is that allegory teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise truth, while parody teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise error. 

In the case of the allegorical story of the three brothers, the ultimate pre-text is the Bible: the father's last recorded words take the form of a will, a dead letter, defining and confining the ways in which the sons are to live their lives:

''You will find in my Will (here it is) full Instructions in every Particular

concerning the Wearing and Management of your Coats; wherein you must be very exact, to avoid the Penalties I have appointed for every transgression or Neglect, upon which your future Fortunes will entirely depend''. 

The later subversion of the will provides us with an allegory of misreading. The abuse of the living coats (the Church) provides an allegory of desire and corruption. The brothers abuse and misinterpret the will as a way of figuring misuse and misinterpretation of the Bible. The attack on Jack, representing Dissenters, is particularly biting it targets the sectarian groups who exalted the individual worshipper or small congregation with their claims to inner light and private conscience, unchecked by tradition and institutional authority. 

◆Experimentation :-

A Tale of Tub is particularly noteworthy for its experimentation with, and departure from, the literary conventions of the period. Narrators’ voices and literary genres switch from section to section as a way of taking the work in radically new directions. Swift also concentrates his satirical fire on the new literary and publishing experiments that emerged in the early 18th century, particularly the apparent obsession of printers with producing endless numbers of novels and short pamphlets. By peppering 'A Tale of the Tub' with excessive punctuation and typographical marks, Swift parodies the enthusiasm for the publications that characterised the print market. Likewise, the work sets out to lampoon the uncritical consumption of contemporary literary prose, which Swift believed too easily led readers to an over-interpretation of meaning. 

◆Nature of Satire :-

Upon its publication, the public realized both that there was an allegory in the story of the brothers and that there were particular political references in the Digressions. Swift's targets in the Tale included indexers, note-makers, and, above all, people who saw "dark matter" in books. He attacks criticism generally, and he appeared to be delighted by the fact that one of his enemies, William Wotton, had offered to explain the Tale in an "answer" to the book and that one of the men he had explicitly attacked, Curll, had offered to explain the book to the public. In the fifth edition of the book in 1705, Swift provided an apparatus to the work that incorporated Wotton's explanations and Swift's narrator's own notes as well. The notes appear to occasionally provide genuine information and just as often to mislead, and William Wotton's name, a defender of the Moderns, was appended to a number of notes. This allows Swift to make the commentary part of the satire itself, as well as to elevate his narrator to the level of self-critic.

It is hard to say what the Tale's satire is about, since it is about any number of things. It is most consistent in attacking misreading of all sorts. Both in the narrative sections and the digressions, the single human flaw that underlies all the follies Swift attacks is over-figurative and over-literal reading, both of the Bible and of poetry and political prose. The narrator is seeking hidden knowledge, mechanical operations of things spiritual, spiritual qualities to things physical, and alternate readings of everything.

Within the "tale" sections of the book, Peter, Martin, and Jack fall into bad company (becoming the official religion of the Roman empire) and begin altering their coats by adding ornaments. They then begin relying on Peter to be the arbitrator of the will, and he begins to rule by authority (he remembered the handyman saying that he once heard the father say that it was alright to put on more ornaments), until such a time that Jack rebels against the rule of Peter. Jack begins to read the will (the Bible) overly literally. He rips the coat to shreds to try to restore the original state of the garment. He begins to rely only upon "inner illumination" for guidance and thus walks around with his eyes closed, after swallowing candle snuffs. Eventually, Peter and Jack begin to resemble one another, and only Martin is left with a coat that is at all like the original.

An important factor in the reception of Swift's work is that the narrator of the work is an extremist in every direction. Consequently, he can no more construct a sound allegory than he can finish his digressions without losing control. For a Church of England reader, the allegory of the brothers provides small comfort. Martin has a corrupted faith, one full of holes and still with ornaments on it. His only virtue is that he avoids the excesses of his brothers, but the original faith is lost to him. Readers of the Tale have picked up on this unsatisfactory resolution to both "parts" of the book, and A Tale of a Tub has often been offered up as evidence of Swift's misanthropy.

As has recently been argued by Michael McKeon, Swift might best be described as a severe skeptic, rather than a Whig, Tory, empiricist, or religious writer. He supported the Classics in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, and he supported the established church and the aristocracy, because he felt the alternatives were worse. He argued elsewhere that there is nothing inherently virtuous about a noble birth, but its advantages of wealth and education made the aristocrat a better ruler than the equally virtuous but unprivileged commoner. A Tale of a Tub is a perfect example of Swift's devastating intellect at work. By its end, little seems worth believing in.

Formally, the satire in the Tale is historically novel for several reasons. First, Swift more or less invented prose parody. What is interesting is that the word "parody" had not been used for prose before, and the definition he offers is arguably a parody of John Dryden defining "parody" in the "Preface to the Satires." Prior to Swift, parodies were imitations designed to bring mirth, but not primarily in the form of mockery. For example, Dryden himself imitated the Aeneid in "MacFlecknoe" to describe the apotheosis of a dull poet, but the imitation made fun of the poet, and not of Virgil.

Additionally, Swift's satire is relatively unique in that he offers no resolutions. While he ridicules any number of foolish habits, he never offers the reader a positive set of values to embrace. While this type of satire became more common as people imitated Swift, later, Swift is quite unusual in offering the readers no way out. He does not persuade to any position, but he does persuade readers from an assortment of positions. This is one of the qualities that has made the Tale Swift's least-read major work. 

Conclusion 

At the end we see a splendid performance of lack of self-awareness, one of the footnotes for a very obscure reference in the Tale concludes by solemnly declaring, “I believe one of the Author’s Designs was to set curious Men a hunting thro’ Indexes, and enquiring for Books out of the common Road”, essentially acknowledging that he as a scholar has been played the fool. The commentator remarks upon finding himself on a wild goose chase for an excellently constructed bit of nonsense alla Swift. In a similar vein, while the quest for the “Perfect edition” of a text is in some sense a valiant one, adopting a more relativist approach to editorial practice  and not simply taking Swift’s words at face value may save future scholars from “a hunting” and “enquiring” for the perfect copy of A Tale of a Tub when there is in fact no such thing. 

ULYSSES by Alfred Tennyson and MY LAST DUCHESS by Robert Browning

 Hello learners, 

Today I'm going to discuss about Victorian poets, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. 

This activity is assigned by our professor Dr. Dilip sir. In this activity I took one poem by both Victorian poets. Tennyson's 'ULYSSES' ans Browning's 'MY LAST DUCHESS'. 

◆Victorian poets:

Introduction

Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson belong to the Victorian era occupying a prominent place as a pre-eminent poets of their time. Both of them apply new techniques and style in writing a poetry, however, both these poets adopt their own style in their writing. 

“Browning focuses on the psyche of his frantic characters and tries to look into deep inside of 

such characters in his writings. Browning tries to understand human nature, religion and 

society properly. He studies the innermost psychology of characters. On the other hand, 

Tennyson draws material from external, specific realities, ideas, and objects and tries to 

express it through ornate language.”

Another significant difference is in their nature of expression. Browning’s writing is always energetic but Tennyson’s tone is generally  melancholic where he gives touch of nostalgia. Both of them started creating their works simultaneously and towered above their contemporaries from 1830 to 1890, the entire period of the reign of Queen Victoria. Browning remained much more aloof from his era than did Tennyson. The new movements of science bothered Tennyson like Arnold and clough. Tennyson’s age is reflected in his work, but Browning’s poetry does not reflect the contemporary social changes and trends which shocked both theology and religion. 

• Alfred Lord Tennyson :-

Active in the nineteenth century, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892) was the leading poet of the Victorian age who remains one of the most renowned poets in the English language and among the most frequently quoted writers. He was appointed the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1850 and held the position for a record 42 years till his death in 1892.

Tennyson was influenced by the writers of the Romantic Age before him as is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He used a wide range of subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature. Here are the 10 most famous poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson including Ulysses, Tithonus, The Eagle and In Memoriam. 

◆Ulysses :-

Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ is written in a masculine vigour. Its philosophy appeals to a life of action and achievement whatever maybe the risks involved.

The simple and lucid narration reveals that Ulysses as being a man of stern belief in adventure leading to achievements. He has a passion for wandering and seeking new knowledge. He does not want to be just the King of Ithaca, ruling the people like any other king. He considers it as a waste of his life and talents he has. He has a deep hatred for idle life as a king. He chooses to experience the last extreme of sufferings, dangers and all that life makes exciting and fruitful. For him a real drunkard is one who drinks his cup of wine to the maximum and a true adventurer like Ulysses, would like to live an ever active and adventurous life till he meets his end. He has earned good reputation of being always ready to acquire knowledge and pass through risky paths to gain experience. He has imbued knowledge from everywhere and his thirst for knowledge remained ever increasing and unquenched. He calls each experience a gateway beyond which lies the unknown and undiscovered world that invites to explore its mysteries, for him there is no limit to the knowledge to acquire and assimilate. Ulysses is of the opinion that life is not mere breathing and living: “As though to breathe were life”. He stresses for hard work, useful activity if not engaged thus, the meal or food people eat is like a piece of metal getting covered with rust. He thinks his ambition of gaining knowledge cannot be fulfilled even if he were granted a series of lives to carry out his mission. He addresses his companions, 

“…Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows;” 

 

He is convinced that there is no sense in merely continuing to exist, it would be shameful on his part to do so when his old spirit is seized with a desire to acquire so much of knowledge as is considered beyond man’s ability to be gained anywhere, anytime. Tennyson brings into focus this idea in a striking illustration. A star sets in our world and we think it is sinking into the sea. None can follow the course of this star once it is sunk into the sea; this task is beyond human world. So is the case with knowledge and thus, achieve something, new and amazing, which no man has ever attempted before, much less succeeded in doing so. So is the burning desire of Ulysses who is young in spirits always. He is no ordinary adventurer or explorer. His mission of life can only end with his death. Whatever may be his state now he wants to conquer newer kingdoms and reach the places none so far attempted to reach. Ulysses’ address to his son and also his character sum up two contrasting aspects of human life when one grows under prevailing circumstances,  eventually his character gets moulded according to the living standards. Ulysses wants his son Telemachus to be authoritative, under whose rule people should live. When he was a child, Ulysses left home to join the Trojan War. During his absence his son grew up and he is a man of peace. He is interested in teaching people how to grow as useful citizens. Ulysses is happy that his son Telemachus will take care of the kingdom well during his absence. Having said farewell to his son, Ulysses speaks to his companions who will accompany him on his voyage. He reminds them of their past exploits which they fought against men and gods in the Trojan War and came out victoriously. They all lived together in glory and adversities, now they have grown old and mature. However, old age is no bar to perform great deeds and winning honour. In fact they must undertake to do something distinctive before death overpowers them and puts their career to an end on 

this earth. He remarks, 

“Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” 

 

He encourages his entire followers to be in high spirits always for achievements. His purpose is to sail beyond the sun-set, the distant west, which is the boundless ocean beyond the straits of Gibraltar, since little was known of what lay beyond this. In fact, the Greeks considered this to be the end of the earth. They should be prepared to strike with their oars the rising waves of the sea, that is ride the waves by using their oars, to take their boats forward, in the absence of a favourable wind. They may be washed away by the waves or they may be lucky enough to gain the Happy Isles, which is known as the Isles of the Blessed, where souls of the good and the great dwell in perfect happiness. Their efforts will be then recorded as they will be privileged to meet ‘the great Achilles’ and other warriors of fame. 

◆For better understand watch the video:

'Ulysses' ancient Greek epic model. The quest for knowledge and determination to find far new shores appears to be a rekindled renaissance spirit in the Victorian era. It also further highlights the indomitable mental frame of the individual to embark upon any course of adventure even if his body is not willing but the spirit cooperative, man's reach of attainments will continue to soar. This is what we symbolically see in Ulysses. Another salient aspect we notice in this poem is that if one is mentally prepared for any difficult task to accomplish, despite odds impeding his progress, still he can achieve that is what Ulysses means to us. 

• Robert Browning :-

The most dramatic influence upon the Victorian poets, however, rests in the rise of science and society’s fascination with the facts of objective reality therefore, a poet has the responsibility to inculcate facts into his poetry, even at its most lyrical.

Robert Browning clearly responds to this change in interest: 

“For it is with this world, as starting point and basis alike, that we shall always have to concern ourselves: the world is not to be learned and thrown aside, but reverted to and relearned”.  

Although Browning clearly respects Shelley’s poetic vision, he also realizes that he cannot “dig where he stands” and explore the inner regions of his own soul while ignoring the “raw material” of people, places, and objects. 

For Browning the poet’s responsibility lies in his ability to the import of details and the universal meaning for those whose vision lacks the depth of insight granted to the poet. Browning insists that Greatness in a work suggests an adequate instrumentality there is moral purpose to the poet’s creation, not just a display of power “for the display’s sake, the love of riches, of distinction, of notoriety”. With his sense of responsibility to his fellow beings, Browning re-fashions the dramatic monologue with its complex hermeneutics as the primary vehicle of cultural dialogue about the most controversial subjects of his time religion, morality, sexuality, and science. 

Recognizing the fragmentation already present in the individual self and the growing alienation of the mechanized society, Browning develops the dramatic monologue to attempt to bring back some of the lost unity of the human self by seeking unrealized continuities among moments, places, persons, sexes, races, and classes. In the dramatic monologue Browning focuses attention upon the fragile lines of communication and contradiction present in all communicative acts.  He seeks to discover whether networks of understanding and cooperation can be created or repaired.  Although the speaker directs his speech to a non-speaking listener, ultimately the speech is always directed outwards to the readers of other times and places.  

◆MY LAST DUCHESS:-

The Last Duchess by Robert Browning is based on incidents in the life of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara.

The poem shows a rich duke's opinion on his wife's death using dramatic monologue. He shows the portrait of his late wife to a visitor and the way he describes her pictured countenance shows that he treats his wife as a mere object. Duke, the psychotic character can be seen as a representative of the entire male race who have been subjugating women counterparts in one way or other. The Duke seems to praise the life like portrait of his last duchess more than his wife in reality when she was alive. Even the piece of art is given more importance than the life of women. This shows how Duchess was treated even lesser than an object of art.

"That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive I call,

That piece a wonder" 

(Browning)

Such subjugation of women is not specific to Duke alone or to Victorian era alone. In Victorian era there was rise in immoral activities i.e. theft, prostitution etc. also there was the rise in orthodoxy. Women even in contemporary times face subjugation and exploitation at hands of men in patriarch society. Every day we see news flashing our TV screens depicting crimes committed on women. Art forms are mirrors of society they reflect what is present in the society of contemporary time of writer. So, dukes behaviour must be similar to ways in which women, in general, were treated during his times. Though the situation of women in contemporary era may not be as bad as it was in duchess's era still they are not seen as equal to men. Duke is enraged by the behaviour of Duchess. According to him his wife had frivolous nature and could be impressed easily by anyone. Her appreciation of common activities like riding white mule round the terrace, or her appreciation of behaviour of a worker who brings a bunch of cherries for her from the garden, is disliked by her husband. Duke wanted his wife as his sole property who can not even smile at her own will. He wants to possess her like an object and to control her every activity. Riding of mule round terrace shows that she was not allowed to go for a horse ride outside the palace. Duke was enraged because Duchess was 

"Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."

He thinks that in marrying Duchess Duke has done her a favour, as during the Victorian times marriage was the only achievement for girls, and according to him she didn't value his, this gift more than the gift of a bunch of cherries from the orchard by an official fool. And when his ego was dismantled by such behaviour of the Duchess, he does not complaint about it to his wife but he rather orders her execution. Such cold blooded murder of own wife clearly shows that Duke has no feeling of love for his wife. He treats her like an object who has no identity of its own and is known by one who possesses it.

"This grew; I gave commands 

Then all smiles stopped together" 

These lines reflect Duke's blunt and emotionless personality. When his wife is executed, he not even gives a hint of sorrow on her death, rather he is planning to remarry. 

To wind up we can say that The Last Duchess reveals the history, character, situation, past, present and future. Some critics say that the poem is about mad love but my conscience is not able to trace the element of love in this poem rather to me it is more a mirror to the condition of women in Victorian society. Duchess here is representative of entire female race during Victorian times. The poem also reveals the future as women are even today treated as second class citizens in most of the societies. Though the treatment today is not as harsh as was given to Duchess of Ferrara. 

◆Summary video:

Conclusion

At the end it is to be concluded that both Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were two main Victorian poets famous in dramatic monologue. Browning logically reveals the essence of a person whereas, Tennyson induce and plays a particular mood. Browning in his poetry attempts to realize human nature, society and religion, whereas Tennyson recalls the conscious mind and environment through ornate language. As a source of his poetry, Tennyson applied many subjects from domestic conditions to observation of atmosphere. Browning, on the contrary, takes immoral characters and challenges us to find out the moral excellence. 

2472 words 

Marriage system in Hard Times and Today

 Hello readers,

Today I'm going to discuss about marriage system with the reference of the novel "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens. This task is given by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. So let's start… 

Introduction

Hard Times: For These Times [commonly known as Hard Times] is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. 

Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston. 

◆Hard Times :-

Charles Dickens’s Hard Times deftly weaves a gripping narrative dealing with industrial growth, huddled human lives devoid of warmth and love; a persistent tussle between fact and fancy life and mechanisation, deteriorating familial relations between husbands and wives son/daughter and father friends turned relatives/strangers and crushed childhood, in a society based on Jeremy Bentham’s doctrine of Utilitarianism. Dickens shows the adverse effects of Utilitarianism on education as well as labour in Hard Times to critique this policy which focussed on 

“the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. 

The novelist, however, views it as extracting maximum output from labour at the cost of their health and similarly making ‘little vessels’, ‘little pitchers’ and ‘empty jars’ to be filled with facts only, thus completely neglecting and negating the spiritual and imaginative side of life that later results in the rudderless existence of the Gradgrind children Louisa and Tom and their subsequent disillusionment. 

This blog, however, limits its discussion to the issue of marriage and divorce during the Victorian era and Dickens’s concern for the poor labourers for whom seeking a divorce could never have been possible given the intricate processes and huge expenses. The paper specifically addresses Stephen Blackpool’s case to reflect how divorce was actually the privilege of the rich and not a right of the poor. James Eli Adams contends that the novel grapples with a grave “injustice, Stephen’s inability to divorce a drunken and dissolute wife who long since had abandoned him”. Apart from it, the case of Josiah Bounderby and Louisa would also be considered to highlight how even the rich in some circumstances could not have procured divorce. 

◆Marriage:-

A Statement on the Religious Morals of 19th Century British Society The Victorian era in England gave birth to the first real industrial society the world had ever seen. With the rise of industry came large cities, an expanded working class population and the rapid rise of imperialism. Although England was progressing towards a more powerful place in the world, its citizens seemed to be drifting in the opposite direction. Oppressive laws and working conditions set clear boundaries between classes in England. The most oppressive social and state laws were those regarding to marriages and divorces. Just as the people of England felt trapped in the unequal social structure of England, the same is true for those trapped in unwanted marital relations. Marriages were regulated by society and the government, therefore, making them more of a materialistic union than a holy or spiritual one. The marriages in Hard Times represent “industrial society” in England during the Victorian era and portray a separation of society from religion. Mr. Gradgrind ready to marry his daughter with his old friend mr. Bounderby, who was very rich. So, if we talk about today's perspective we find lot many example of that type of marriage when, a man is old and a girl bride is young. And all this happen because of money. People want money and money, for that they do anything ! We can assume that anything… 

The system of marriage is increase in 21st century. Parents gives permission to their daughter to marry whom they like. Measure of love marriage is now increase. The practice of monogamy, absence of widow remarriage lack of facility for easy divorce and chastity are regarded as important ideals now we see that changes have occurred in the institution of Hindu marriage, because of several factors such as urbanization, industrialization, secularization, modern education impact of Western culture, and marriage legislations; changes are taking place in Hindu ideals, forms and values of marriage.

◆Three pair of marriage :-

We find three pairs of couple in the novel,

1. Mr. Bounderby and Louisa

2. Stephen Blackpool and his wife 

3. Mr. And Mrs. Gradgrind

But, there are no happy marriages in Hard Times. In Stephen's case, it focuses instead on a missed opportunity for true companionship. In the case of the Gradgrinds, you've got an entirely intellectually unequal match where spouses are indifferent to each other. Then there's a loveless disaster where husband and wife grow to hate each other in the case of Louisa and Bounderby. The only happy unions are mythic, have occurred in the past, or are just barely implied, as in the case of the Jupes or Sissy and her eventual family. 

Marriage in the Victorian era was hardly an example of an equal partnership. When a woman got married, she gave up all her rights to her husband. The husband controlled all assets in the marriage, including any assets his wife may have had before the marriage. The three main marriages described in Hard Times are those between Louisa Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind, and Stephen Blackpool and his wife. None of these three marriages are loving or prosperous. The inequality in these marriages and the pain caused by them gives insight into the characteristics of real life marriages during this time. For example, the one marriage that affected Louisa’s upbringing the most was that between her parents. From the beginning of the novel, Mr. Gradgrind is described as, “A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over”. The reader sees him as a strong, intelligent, no nonsense figure. However, when Mrs. Gradgrind is described, she is described as the complete opposite of her husband. She is introduced as, “Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her”. Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind’s marriage displays not only inequality, but also the first signs of incompatibility in a marriage in the book. Already in the novel, Mrs. Gradgrind is oppressed and even burdened by Mr. Gradgrind’s “fact” lifestyle. Mr. Gradgrind’s world of facts is essentially the basis of oppression in marriages during the 19th century.

◆Divorce:-

The fact was, once two people were joined in marriage, it was extremely difficult to get out. In Anne Humpherys’ “Louisa Gradgrind’s Secret: Marriage and Divorce in Hard Times”, she describes the processes of divorce in 19th century England: 

“As Bounderby makes clear to Stephen, divorce in 1854 was difficult, complicated, and costly”. 

The only "cause" for divorce was adultery, which for women suing had to be "aggravated" by incest or bigamy, though, in fact, legal separations were granted women for abandonment and cruelty. (There were only four full divorces granted women prior to 1857.) Three separate legal actions, including a bill in the House of Lords, were necessary. Legal separation ‘from bed and board’ was possible, but women in that position had no legal rights, nor a right to their own earnings, nor to custody of their children, nor could either party remarry”. Facts were the law. Just as Mr. Gradgrind’s facts were not to be disputed, the law was not to be broken. Any woman who violated the law could be punished by the society. It's one type of disappeared rule that once you got married you can not leave the home of your husband at any cost. In rural area we find that the parents tell their daughter that "your husband and his house is everything for you, if you are in trouble then solve it at your husband's home, now this is not your home, if want any help then tell us but, don't leave your husband's home, it's about our reputation". 

◆Mismatched Marriages:-

There are many unequal marriages in Hard Times, including those of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind, Stephen Blackpool and his unnamed drunken wife, and most pertinently, the Bounderbys. Louisa agrees to marry Mr. Bounderby because her father convinces her that doing so would be a rational decision. He even cites statistics to show that the great difference in their ages need not prevent their mutual happiness. However, Louisa’s consequent misery as Bounderby’s wife suggests that love, rather than either reason or convenience, must be the foundation of a happy marriage. In this 21st century we fine lot many example of mismatched marriages because a girl want to see her family happy and special her father and brother. So, they sacrifice her all aims and dreams to see her family happy. In many movie we can see that type of scenes that a girl is agree to marry someone only because her father said them to marry. 

Conclusion

So we can see that Stephen and Bounderby, the labourer and the mill owner, respectively represent diverse strands. The readers feel sympathy for the former and disgust for the latter. Stephen is virtuous, honest, and a man of principles and integrity; while Bounderby is full of vanity and deceit. Given the situation of both, Bounderby can pay the amount of divorce as he is rich and can enact a Private Act of Parliament; Stephen cannot as he is poor. However, Bounderby cannot get divorce as his wife has not committed adultery. Therefore, he can live separately as the Ecclesiastical Court would grant him permission but cannot remarry as the House of Lords would not permit it. Louisa also cannot find an escape from this “miserable marriage”. Stephen cannot even move to the Ecclesiastical Court as he cannot even pay the requisite amount as he has all the necessary grounds as his wife has committed adultery and is therefore, genuinely to be pitied for. It is quite evident here, after analysing the characters of both, Stephen and Bounderby, that Dickens pleads more the case of Stephen as he is a real victim despite being honest. As Efraim Sicher writes:

“Stephen performs the role of neo-Christian saint of forbearance and kindness, a martyr to the masters’ hardheartedness and criminal negligence, who maintains an all-too perfect moral integrity in the muddle of hypocritical laws made for the wealthy and privileged members of society”.

However, Dickens largely appeals for happy married lives as there is no use living with a person when life turns out to be a real hell devouring all happiness. It is for this reason that he dealt with the marriage laws in his Household Words and advocated lenient laws so that not only women but also men could find an escape from an otherwise caged existence. 

●Summary analysis :

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