HARD
TIMES
In addition to Mr Gradgrind, the other main character is the ruthless banker Mr Bounderby, also targeted by Dickens' sarcasm. Mr Bounderby is even worse than Mr Gradgrind, as an expression of the idea about the
supposed moral superiority of the rich.
Mr. Bounderby keeps on saying, throughout the
novel, that he comes from a lower class and that he is a self-made man.
It is not really so, finally his mother will disgrace him publicly; anyway, he tries to advocate the idea that "the poor are poor because of them". But the Castle of the Facts will collapse eventually and it will overwhelm its designers.
Mr. Grandgrind will experience the
failure of his theories as his son Tom will rob from Mr Bounderby's bank,
where he worked, and will have to flee abroad, while his daughter
Louisa who had accepted to marry Bounderby because of her upbringing( he
is much older than her but it could be a good marriage for financial reasons,
in doing so she can help her brother!) will fall into a deep
depression: Mr. Bounderby will remain alone and will die of a heart
attack.
The only character who will have a
happy life will be Sissy who, after being abandoned as a child, from her
father, she has been raised in Mr. Grandgrind’s family to do a social
experiment- that is to see if, once educated in“Facts”, she would give up her
childhood dreams.
But Sissy will immediately show her lack
of bond with the“Facts” and, without ever openly opposing the way things work
in Coketown, but being meekly carried away by life, in the end she will be
right. She will prove that there is no
happiness without imagination and without compassion.
Started out of nowhere Gesualdo Motta
fights to accumulate wealth, land, real estate, to assert himself against the
big “players” of his town.
The higher he rises in the social scale,
the more human beings in theory closer to him–; the father, Master Nunzio, the
incapable brothers, the noble and penniless relatives–try to snatch his
"stuff".
MASTRO DON GESUALDO
Mastro-don
Gesualdo is a story about the difficulties of mobility between social classes.
Mastro-don can be translated as “Sir-Workman,” a title that embodies the
story’s central dilemma. The protagonist, Gesualdo Motta, is a peasant, a
former bricklayer, who becomes a wealthy landowner through hard work and
judicious business practices. Therefore, after a lot of effort he has become rich.
The problem is that he cannot rise socially, although his
marriage to the noble Bianca Trao. In addition, despite the Trao family is
itself impoverished, its members cannot regard Gesualdo as anything but a
peasant. The decadence of the unbending Trao family is repeatedly contrasted
with the honesty, strength, vitality, ingenuity, and ambition of Gesualdo. His
lack of understanding concerning his isolated social position is the source of
his tragedy.
SIMILARITIES
Mastro Don
Gesualdo’s brother is lazy and in Hard Times Tom is a sluggish boy.
Mastro Don
Gesualdo doesn’t want to marry Diodata who has given him two children. He gets
married to a woman Bianca Teao he is not in love with.
Mr Bounderby
gets married to a very young girl that he probably doesn’t love, as well.
Louisa consents
to marriage with Bounderby because her brother Tom encourages it. In essence,
this is just another decision she makes based upon the love and protection she
feels for her brother.
She also feels
the strong influence of the father, who has made plans for her and her future.
Bianca Trao also
doesn’t love Mastro Don Gesualdo and she marries him because she is made to do
that.
The marriage to
Bianca follows the principle of a utilitarian logic (What is useful is
good!)
Bianca despises
Mastro Don Gesualdo and she treats him in a detached way.
Louisa can’t
stand Mr Bounderby at all.
Louisa and Bianca Trao are sacrificed to money; there’s no room for real
feelings and emotions, which are experienced just in a completely hysterical
and self-destructive way. Louisa has a nervous breakdown, Bianca Trao is always
sad and depressed.
A common clear point could be the problem of arranged marriages in the 19th century
in Italy as well as in England.
People at
the time did not think of marriage as a work of love but as a business.
Mrs. Sparsit herself does not love Mr. Bounderby yet she wishes to marry
him for his money and rank.
However, a marriage arranged for profit and convenience end in
disaster.
Another common
point is the problem of social climbing.
The logic of
the stuff prevails in Mastro Don Gesualdo.
The new values
of the new middle class utilitarianism are stated.
The law of
existence becomes that of a merciless Darwinism, so only the strongest and the
most suitable survive.
Josiah Bounderby proudly, loudly, and frequently proclaims to
have been born in a ditch, abandoned there by his mother, and rescued by an
abusive grandmother who raised him. He also claims to have ascended to his
position of wealth and respect in Coketown by means of his own cunning and
enterprise, overcoming abuse and hardship every step of the way. After his
marriage collapses, the truth about his family—he was raised by a loving,
middle-class widowed mother Mrs Pegler—emerges, and his status diminishes.
Finally, we
understand that he is not a real self-made man – he had a decent,
loving childhood and a good education, and he was not abandoned, after all.
Mastro Don
Gesualdo shows to be a real self-made man, but finally he
is completely defeated. He feels constantly isolated and lonely and his
loneliness is at the centre of the novel. He is a loser like many other
characters created by Verga.
He is unable to
reconstruct any relationship with his daughter Isabella and finally he turns
into a passive spectator of the collapse of his little empire by his
son-in-law (the Duke of Leyra).When Gesualdo dies he is
completely alone.
