The monotonous education system Essays

The monotonous education system Essays The monotonous education system Essay The monotonous education system Essay A contrasting character to Sissy is Bitzer who is dull, pale and drained of any life or individuality. the boy who was so light-eyed and light-haired that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. The fact her could have ‘bled white’ shows a contrast that he still has the individuality but it is made white, colourless like his personality that is filled with repetition of facts. This description of Bitzer contrasts enormously with Sissy’s the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired she seemed to receive a deeper more lustrous colour from the sun. Bitzer is seen as a lifeless zombie and represents the Victorian education system in the novel which contrasts with sissy representing freedom and individuality. Bitzer is seen to have become a slave to Gradgrind’s facts and the education system. One of the ways Dickens represents the way facts have become heavenly and a way of life is by his use of biblical language. â€Å"facts forbid† Gradgrind says this instead of heaven forbid, this shows that facts have become his god and he worships them and is obsessed. This is a clever technique to use because it highlights how obsessed some of the people in the Victorian period had become with just getting the facts and not being creative or fun. Further more in a world of hard facts and figures, Pegasus, the winged horse from Greek mythology, is a symbol of fancy and wonder. In Hard Times, Pegasus is associated with the circus people, who embody values that are quite different from those of Gradgrind and Bounderby. Slearys circus people live at an Inn called the Pegasuss Arms. The Inn has a picture of Pegasus on its sign-board, and inside there is a portrait of one of the circus horses, which is described as another Pegasus. This Pegasus has real gauze let in for his wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk. The circus horses, in conjunction with the skill and daring of their riders, create a sense of wonder in the audience, allowing them to escape the drudgery of the hard facts world served up to them by people like Gradgrind and Bounderby. Seen in this light, the existence of the circus horses is a direct reproach to Gradgrind, who in Book I, chapter 2 asks the children in class to define a horse. Bitzer gives a factual definition: Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four-eye teeth, and twelve incisive. This pleases Gradgrind, but it comes nowhere near to suggesting the capacities of the horse as symbolized by Pegasus. The book hard times is split up into two sections ‘reaping’ and ‘sowing’. These two titles have a significance to the story because at the beginning of the novel Gradgrind is force feeding the students facts and little did he know this would come back to haunt him later on in the novel. He is sowing the seeds which is a metaphor for him force feeding children facts and reaping the crops is a metaphor for when Bitzer ironically turns his back on Gradgrind. Lastly, it is clear that one of Dickens’ aims in writing this novel is to comment on his thoughts about the monotonous education system at the time. It was written in an attempt to challenge the view of this society at a time when practicality and facts were of greater importance and value than feelings and persons.  Names- Dickens also uses characters from the novels names to represent his anger at the point he was trying to get across such as ‘Mr. M’Choakumchild’ chokes his pupils with facts and Thomas Gradgrind grinds down the children. He shows his hatred for Victorian schools clearly in Hard Times and especially in his description of Gradgrind.