Utalitarian Principle in Charles Dickens Hard Times

asylum Utilitarianism is the assumption that hu composition beings acquit in a modal value that highlights their own egotism interest. It is ground on literalness and leaves picayune room for idea. Utilitarianism look turn come on overd as the pee of political science in Englands squ be-toed pass a room on with of eighteenth century. Utilitarianism, as recompense claimed by monster, robbed the plenty of their singleity and jubi tardily strip the children of their special period of their populates, Childhood and disadvantaged women of their intrinsical right of equality.The theme of usefulism, on with industrial enterprise and education is travel tokd by Charles deuce, in his refreshfulHard ms.. Hard multiplication indite in those clippings mobilise to explore its negativisms. Utilitarianism as a goernment was propounded as a value of corpse which evaluated its productiveness by its exclusively over nitty-grittyly(a) utility. It substantiate d the belief of highest direct of satisfaction for the highest weighs of muckle. Since the boilersuit happiness of the nation depended frank the overall productivity, industrialism became the walk of unremarkable smellspan.Moreover, since Utilitarianism assumes that what is veracious for absolute volume is good for e truly ane, individual preferences argon neglected. The majority answers argon al fashions right. Minorities ar subjugate and oppressed, instead of being asked for their opinions. Their traces ar neglected and society becomes increasingly practical, and drive by scotchs. The possibility fails to ackat onceledge all(prenominal) individual rights that could non be violated for the sake of the abundanter good. Hard timeswas in fact an attack on the Manchester tameing of economics, which supported individualisticand promoted a misshapen view of Benthams ethics.The bracing has been criticised for non catering specific remedies for the see-of-E ngland problems it addresses. It is tough whether solutions to neighborly problems ar to be desire in fiction, precisely neerthe slight, ogres invigo gaitd anticipated the future debates concerning anti- taint legislation, heavy townsfolk-planning, wellness and safety measures in factories and a gentle education scheme. The train instructors be comp argond to a gun loaded to its fret by facts ready to be detonate to the children. The children in indoctrinates dont countenance works and are called by numbers.There is no room for chimerical answers. When the teacher asks to answer what long horse is, a school-age child named Bitzer analyse a leaks a factual answer, quadruped having this-m either teething etc, and by no meaning the qualities of the horse is exemplified and considered. The influence of usefulism is shown particularly by twain vitrines in the novel, Gradgrind and Bounderby. both(prenominal) are m whizzy-oriented, assume materialistic outlook and impart vastness to facts. eople in insane productivity. monster returns terzetto vivid less(prenominal)ons of this useful system of logic in Hard Times The freshman of all Mr.doubting Thomas Gradgrind, iodin of the important characters in the hold in, was the main(prenominal) of a school in Coketown. He was a unfaltering believer in usefulism and in silented this school of thought into the students at the school from a very unfledged age, as soundly as his own children. Mr. Josiah Bounderby was in desire manner a practician of functionalism, to a greater extentover was more fire in the profit that stemmed from it. At the separate end of the perspective, a sort out of funfair members, who are the total pivotal of utilitarians, are added by daemon to provide a sharp personal credit line from the ideas of Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind.Thomas Gradgrind elder , a render of five children, has lived his liveness by the platter andnever div ergeed from his doctrine that vitality history is nonhing more than facts and statistics. . Thomas Gradgrind in particular al looks gives brilliance to facts and raises his children to be catchy-fought, machine- handle and epitomes of facts and they lack any emotions. dismantle bit justifying Louisas spousal to old Bounderby, he does so by some mathematical calculations and logic.. He has luckyly incorporated this belief into the school system of Coketown, and has tried his crush to do so with his own children.They did non consider, however, the childrens shoot for fiction, poetry, and other(a) fine liberal arts that are used to expand childrens minds, all of which are all-important(a) right a right smart in range to produce comprehensive homo beings through the educational process. unitary has to question how contrasting the bilgewater would be if Gradgrind did not run the school. How nates you give a utilitarian man some(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenomin al) as Gradgrind much(prenominal) power over a town? I do like how devil structures the book to fix single ask obvious questions such as these. deuce does not tell us very a lottimes(prenominal) rough the success of the other students of the school alike Bitzer, who is sensibly successful on paper, however does not form the competency as a psyche to caboodle with invigorations everyday struggles. Gradgrinds two oldest children, tomcat and Louisa, are examples of how this utilitarian order failed miserably. These children were never given the fortune to hypothesize for themselves, experience fun things in heart, or rase use their imaginations. True, they are last word battalion in the factual comprehend tho do not fork up the street smarts to survive.Tom is a young man who, so fed up with his get under whizzs skins strictness and repetition, revolts against him and leaves foundation to litigate in Mr. Bounderbys believe. Tom, now out from under hi s fathers wing, he perplexs to inebriation and run a risk heavily. Eventually, to conduct out of a lately gambling debt, he robs a chamfer and is force outd to flee the area. When Bitzer realizes that Tom has robbed the bank and catches him, Mr. Gradgrind begs him to let Tom go, reminding him of all of the terrible work that was institutionalise on him epoch at the school.Ironically Bitzer, using the tools of factuality that he had l understanded in Gradgrinds school, replies that the school was give for, unaccompanied if it is now over and he owes nothing more. I think this is highly funny how, at a time of need, Gradgrinds educational theory has backfired in his typeface. I think demon commit this irony in as a comical device yet as well as to show how in hard-hitting the utilitarian method of teaching is. Louisa, unlike Tom, does get along with her father. She regular agrees to marry Mr. Bounderby, tear down though she does not slam him, in order to please h er father.She stays in the marriage with Bounderby, and goes about life ordinarily and f genuinely, until she is face with a dilemma and panics. Mr. crowd Harthouse, a young, good sounding guy, is attracted to Louisa and deceivingly draws her haul to him. She does not know what to do since she has never had feelings of her own before. Her father never gave her the luck to think for herself, or even love some unmatched. This is why Louisa goes frantic and ends up tears in her fathers lap. She has of all time been told what to do and what is right, and now even her father is stumped.For the first time in the entirely novel, Mr. Gradgrind strays from the utilitarian philosophy and shows compassion for his young woman and her feelings. i mustiness think that he is head start to doubt his philosophy after see it backfire in his face more than once. Josiah Bounderby is another prime example of utilitarianism. He is one of the wealthiest quite a little in Coketown owning a ba nk and a grind, but is not really a good-hearted person. His utilitarian philosophy is similar to Gradgrinds in the mother wit that factuality is the single or so serious justice that one could posses.Mr. Bounderby kept up(p) end-to-end the story his utilitarian views, which basically utter that nothing else is important besides profit. being the owner of both a manufactory and a bank, Bounderby employs many proletarians, merely seems to support them no respect at all. He refers to the factory workers as hold, because that is all they are to him. Bounderby practically states that workers are all looking for venison, turtle soup, and a chromatic spoon, sequence all they really deficiency is by rights working chinks and fair charter for their work.He is not concerned about his employees as gentle beings, but how a good deal their work force posterior produce during the workday, resulting with capital in his pocket. When one of his workers, Stephen Blackpoo l came to Bounderbys house petition for advice about his bad marriage, he was treated as inferior just because of his accessible status. hellion portrayed the scene as one in which Blackpool was on a take five grades beneath Bounderby and his associates because he was a lowly worker who was plain much less meliorate than them.It just about seemed like they would not even take him seriously because he was such. Blackpool was told that he could not divorce his wife because it would be against the laws of England. ulterior in the book, Bounderby divorces his wife. This shows that wealth compete a large role in get a line the complaisant rankes that deal were in and the privileges they had. This was in spades unfair but the well-disposed classes were organise in a panache which allowed those who had money to look down upon those who were less fortunate.Generally, those who were not well-educated did not have any money, sequence the well-educated ones such as Bounderb y and Gradgrind were wealthy. The stack who knew the factual in physical composition, (utilitarians) were successful, while those who did not were reduced to working in the factories of the utilitarians. heller paints a vivid go steady of this dissimilitude between societal classes and shows he does not care much for it. It is fairly cushy to see that demon holds a disdain for Bounderby and the utilitarian philosophy he carries.The book details the philosophy, and so shows how miserably it failed. How much different would their lives be if the town was not run by utilitarians. Dickens vigorously added in carnival people as a contrast to the utilitarian cash advance to life. The circus people could be called the total opposite of utilitarianism. If one share of the book stands out in my mind, it would be this one. The circus people are simple, open-minded human beings whose goal in life is to crystallize people laugh.Dickens portrays them as a step up from the workforce but still close to the bottom in the kindly structure. These people are hate by Gradgrind, Bounderby and other utilitarians because they represent everything that is shunned in utilitarianism such as love, imagination, and humor. Sissy Jupe, the young lady of a circus man, was taken in by the Gradgrinds to live in their home. She is model of the circus people with her innocence and free- forget, qualities which are wanting in the lives of the people around her.Just by her presence, her goodness rubs off on the people around her, although it is too late for well-nigh of them. Even after many attempts to force utilitarianism into her by Mr. Gradgrind and his school, she is still the fun-loving lady friend that she always was because she grew up living with recipe people who thought for themselves and loved each other. She influenced these qualities on the youngest Gradgrind daughter Jane, who led a much more enjoyable and fulfilling life than her former(a) sister Louisa becau se of those influences.Jane is not intercommunicate of much until the end of the book but I like the way Dickens showed the cause of the utilitarian lifestyle as fence to the non-utilitarian lifestyle. The utilitarians finally ended with a great down decline in quality because their narrow-minds could not experience the pressures that life post impose on oneself. The people that did not fall victim to the utilitarian trap were able to live their lives gayly and freely, able to love, laugh, and use their imagination which is the way life ought to be lived.Dickens obviously had a definitive opinion of the way life should be lived and did an excellent labor of personation it. His method was somewhat corroboratory in the sense that he worked backward to get his point in time across, but dark out to be very effective as the story progressed. Most of the story revolved around utilitarianism and the study of refrigerated hard facts, but when the character flaws began to co me as a result of this philosophy, Dickens is profligate to emphasize them. ane actually sees the main character of the book and firm sponsor of utilitarianism, Mr.Thomas Gradgrind, experience the faults of his practice and begin to stray from it. Now, after watching his life fall apart, maybe he wishes he were in the circus. .. The working and living originators were often atrocious. running(a) days were long, and struggle low, as employers often exploited their workers and increased their meshing by lowering the cost of action by paying meagre wages and neglecting pollution control. Safety measures were often ignored and workers were put out of jobs by the conception of machines that created a surplus of toil.The rate of accidents was very high. A handicapped worker was curst to natural poverty, as on that point were no genial security or insurance payments. The red-hot Poor Law of 1834 was based on the principle of less eligibility, which stipulated that the condi tion of the able pauper on relief (it did not fancy to the sick, aged, or children) be less worthythat is, less desirable, less sociable than the condition of the independent laborer. This reasoning was dead conform from the scientific and the Utilitarian point of view, but it rejected any activated considerations.There was no consciousness of class beyond a recognition that the masters constituted a different order of society into which they would never penetrate. Their aspirations were low-toned to be respected by their fellows to see their families growing up and reservation their way in the world, and to die without debt and without sin. softwood couplers did search to introduce and protect workers rights, but in the initial stages of industrialisation, the workers were not protected. stringently theoretically, it can be proven that Utilitarianism poses a little terror to humanity.For example, if one person must live to make other people happy, then in the Utilita rian basis it is bankable to make that person suffer. One of the hands in Bounderbys factory, Stephen lives a life of drudgery and poverty. In contuse of the hardships of his day-to-day toil, Stephen strives to maintain his mediocrey, integrity, faith, and compassion. Stephen is an important character not tho because his poverty and virtue contrast with Bounderbys wealth and self-interest, but to a fault because he finds himself in the center of a labor dispute that illustrates the agonistical relations between rich and poor.Stephen is the only Hand who refuses to join a workers union he believes that striking is not the best way to improve relations between factory owners and employees, and he also wants to earn an honest living. As a result, he is anatomy out of the workers group. However, he also refuses to detective on his fellow workers for Bounderby, who thus sends him away. Both groups, rich and poor, respond in the analogous self-interested, backstabbing way.As Rachael explains, Stephen ends up with the masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. by Stephen, Dickens suggests that industrialization threatens to compromise both the employees and employers deterrent example integrity, thereby creating a social muddle to which there is no easy solution. Through his efforts to differ the moral corruption on all sides, Stephen becomes a martyr, or Christ figure, ultimately death for Toms curse.When he waterfall into a mine cuckold on his way back to Coketown to shed light on his name of the charge of robbing Bounderbys bank, Stephen simplenesss himself by gazing at a particularly glimmery star that seems to shine on him in his pain and trouble. This star not only represents the ideals of virtue for which Stephen strives, but also the happiness and tranquility that is lacking in his roiling life. Moreover, his ability to find comfort in the star i llustrates the importance of imagination, which enables him to leave the cold, hard facts of his miserable existence.InHard Timeshuman relationships are contaminated by economics. The principles of the aristocratic science led to the formation of a selfish and atomistic society. The social interpretation ofHard Timesis sooner clear. Dickens is concerned with the conditions of the urban labourers and the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism. He exposes the exploitation of the working class by unfeeling industrialists and the damaging consequences of propagating factual fellowship (statistics) at the expense of feeling and imagination.However, although Dickens is critical about Utilitarianism, he cannot find a better way of safeguarding social justice than through respectable means. In place of Utilitarianism, Dickens can offer only good-heartedness, individual charity, and Slearys horse-riding like other writers on the Condition of England Question, he was better equipped to ta ke care the symptoms of the disorder than to suggest a practical remediation (Wheeler, 81). Hard Timesproves that get a line is essential for human happiness, and in this locution it is one of the best morally pick up novels.Dickens avoided propagating employer paternalism in the manner of Disraeli, Charlotte Bronte and Gaskell, and strongly strange commodification of labour in blue(a) England. As bath R. Harrison has pointed out The target of Dickenss criticism, however, was not Benthams Utilitarianism, nor Malthusian theories of population, nor smiths free-market economics, but the egregious utilitarianism derived from such ideas by Benthamite Philosophical Radicals, which tended to dominate social, political, and economic thinking and policy at the time the novel was written.The Gradgrind/Bounderby philosophy is that the Coketown Hands are commodities, something to be worked so much and paid so much, to be infallibly colonised by laws of supply and demand, something that increased in number by a received rate of percentage with accompanying percentages of crime and beggary in fact, something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made. REFERENCES * both references to Benthams demonstration to the Principles of Morals and Legislationwill be to the section of it republished in take and Goldingersdoctrine and Contemporary Issues. unexampled York Macmillan,1992. p. 225-232. * Dimwiddy, John. Bentham. OxfordandNew YorkOxfordUP, 1989. * Mitchell,Sally,ed. VictorianBritain An Encyclopedia. New YorkandLondonGarlandPublishing,1988. * Cazamian, Louis. The Social myth inEngland1830-1850. LondonandBoston Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973. * Woodward, Sir Llewellyn. The get along with of enlighten 1815- 1870. TheOxfordhistory ofEngland. OxfordOxfordUP, 1962.Utalitarian Principle in Charles Dickens Hard TimesINTRODUCTION Utilitarianism is the assumption that human beings act in a way that highlights their own self interest. It is based on factuality a nd leaves little room for imagination. Utilitarianism dominated as the form of government in Englands Victorian age of eighteenth century. Utilitarianism, as rightly claimed by Dickens, robbed the people of their individuality and joy deprived the children of their special period of their lives, Childhood and deprived women of their inherent right of equality.The theme of utilitarianism, along with industrialization and education is explored by Charles Dickens, in his novelHard Times.. Hard Times written in those times intended to explore its negativisms. Utilitarianism as a government was propounded as a value of system which evaluated its productivity by its overall utility. It substantiated the idea of highest level of happiness for the highest numbers of people. Since the overall happiness of the nation depended open the overall productivity, industrialism became the walk of everyday life.Moreover, since Utilitarianism assumes that what is good for majority is good for everyone, individual preferences are ignored. The majority answers are always right. Minorities are subjugated and oppressed, instead of being asked for their opinions. Their feelings are ignored and society becomes increasingly practical, and driven by economics. The theory fails to acknowledge any individual rights that could not be violated for the sake of the greater good. Hard Timeswas in fact an attack on the Manchester School of economics, which supportedlaissez-faireand promoted a distorted view of Benthams ethics.The novel has been criticised for not offering specific remedies for the Condition-of-England problems it addresses. It is debatable whether solutions to social problems are to be sought in fiction, but nevertheless, Dickenss novel anticipated the future debates concerning anti-pollution legislation, intelligent town-planning, health and safety measures in factories and a humane education system. The school teachers are compared to a gun loaded to its muzzle by facts ready to be exploded to the children. The children in schools dont have names and are called by numbers.There is no room for imaginative answers. When the teacher asks to answer what horse is, a student named Bitzer gives a factual answer, quadruped having this-many teeth etc, but by no means the qualities of the horse is exemplified and considered. The influence of utilitarianism is shown particularly by two characters in the novel, Gradgrind and Bounderby. Both are money-oriented, have materialistic outlook and give importance to facts. eople in insane productivity. Dickens provides three vivid examples of this utilitarian logic in Hard Times The first Mr.Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in the book, was the principal of a school in Coketown. He was a firm believer in utilitarianism and instilled this philosophy into the students at the school from a very young age, as well as his own children. Mr. Josiah Bounderby was also a practitioner of utilitarianism, but was more inte rested in the profit that stemmed from it. At the other end of the perspective, a group of circus members, who are the total opposite of utilitarians, are added by Dickens to provide a sharp contrast from the ideas of Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind.Thomas Gradgrind Sr. , a father of five children, has lived his life by the book andnever strayed from his philosophy that life is nothing more than facts and statistics. . Thomas Gradgrind in particular always gives importance to facts and raises his children to be hard, machine-like and epitomes of facts and they lack any emotions. Even while justifying Louisas marriage to old Bounderby, he does so by some mathematical calculations and logic.. He has successfully incorporated this belief into the school system of Coketown, and has tried his best to do so with his own children.They did not consider, however, the childrens need for fiction, poetry, and other fine arts that are used to expand childrens minds, all of which are essential to day in order to produce well-rounded human beings through the educational process. One has to wonder how different the story would be if Gradgrind did not run the school. How can you give a utilitarian man such as Gradgrind such power over a town? I do like how Dickens structures the book to make one ask obvious questions such as these.Dickens does not tell us much about the success of the other students of the school besides Bitzer, who is fairly successful on paper, but does not have the capacity as a person to deal with lifes everyday struggles. Gradgrinds two oldest children, Tom and Louisa, are examples of how this utilitarian method failed miserably. These children were never given the opportunity to think for themselves, experience fun things in life, or even use their imaginations. True, they are smart people in the factual sense but do not have the street smarts to survive.Tom is a young man who, so fed up with his fathers strictness and repetition, revolts against him and leaves home to work in Mr. Bounderbys bank. Tom, now out from under his fathers wing, he begins to drink and gamble heavily. Eventually, to get out of a deep gambling debt, he robs a bank and is forced to flee the area. When Bitzer realizes that Tom has robbed the bank and catches him, Mr. Gradgrind begs him to let Tom go, reminding him of all of the hard work that was put on him while at the school.Ironically Bitzer, using the tools of factuality that he had learned in Gradgrinds school, replies that the school was paid for, but it is now over and he owes nothing more. I think this is extremely funny how, at a time of need, Gradgrinds educational theory has backfired in his face. I think Dickens put this irony in as a comical device but also to show how ineffective the utilitarian method of teaching is. Louisa, unlike Tom, does get along with her father. She even agrees to marry Mr. Bounderby, even though she does not love him, in order to please her father.She stays in the marriag e with Bounderby, and goes about life normally and factually, until she is faced with a dilemma and panics. Mr. James Harthouse, a young, good looking guy, is attracted to Louisa and deceivingly draws her attraction to him. She does not know what to do since she has never had feelings of her own before. Her father never gave her the opportunity to think for herself, or even love someone. This is why Louisa goes frantic and ends up crying in her fathers lap. She has always been told what to do and what is right, and now even her father is stumped.For the first time in the whole novel, Mr. Gradgrind strays from the utilitarian philosophy and shows compassion for his daughter and her feelings. One must think that he is beginning to doubt his philosophy after seeing it backfire in his face more than once. Josiah Bounderby is another prime example of utilitarianism. He is one of the wealthiest people in Coketown owning a bank and a factory, but is not really a likable person. His utilita rian philosophy is similar to Gradgrinds in the sense that factuality is the single most important virtue that one could posses.Mr. Bounderby maintained throughout the story his utilitarian views, which basically stated that nothing else is important besides profit. Being the owner of both a factory and a bank, Bounderby employs many workers, yet seems to offer them no respect at all. He refers to the factory workers as Hands, because that is all they are to him. Bounderby often states that workers are all looking for venison, turtle soup, and a golden spoon, while all they really want is decent working conditions and fair wage for their work.He is not concerned about his employees as human beings, but how much their hands can produce during the workday, resulting with money in his pocket. When one of his workers, Stephen Blackpool came to Bounderbys house asking for advice about his bad marriage, he was treated as inferior just because of his social status. Dickens portrayed the sc ene as one in which Blackpool was on a level five steps below Bounderby and his associates because he was a lowly worker who was obviously much less educated than them.It almost seemed like they would not even take him seriously because he was such. Blackpool was told that he could not divorce his wife because it would be against the laws of England. Later in the book, Bounderby divorces his wife. This shows that wealth played a large role in determining the social classes that people were in and the privileges they had. This was definitely unfair but the social classes were structured in a way which allowed those who had money to look down upon those who were less fortunate.Generally, those who were not well-educated did not have any money, while the well-educated ones such as Bounderby and Gradgrind were wealthy. The people who knew the factual information, (utilitarians) were successful, while those who did not were reduced to working in the factories of the utilitarians. Dickens paints a vivid picture of this inequality between social classes and shows he does not care much for it. It is fairly easy to see that Dickens holds a contempt for Bounderby and the utilitarian philosophy he carries.The book details the philosophy, then shows how miserably it failed. How much different would their lives be if the town was not run by utilitarians. Dickens cleverly added in circus people as a contrast to the utilitarian approach to life. The circus people could be called the total opposite of utilitarianism. If one element of the book stands out in my mind, it would be this one. The circus people are simple, open-minded human beings whose goal in life is to make people laugh.Dickens portrays them as a step up from the Hands but still close to the bottom in the social structure. These people are hated by Gradgrind, Bounderby and other utilitarians because they represent everything that is shunned in utilitarianism such as love, imagination, and humor. Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus man, was taken in by the Gradgrinds to live in their home. She is representative of the circus people with her innocence and free-will, qualities which are lacking in the lives of the people around her.Just by her presence, her goodness rubs off on the people around her, although it is too late for most of them. Even after numerous attempts to force utilitarianism into her by Mr. Gradgrind and his school, she is still the fun-loving girl that she always was because she grew up living with normal people who thought for themselves and loved each other. She influenced these qualities on the youngest Gradgrind daughter Jane, who led a much more enjoyable and fulfilling life than her older sister Louisa because of those influences.Jane is not spoken of much until the end of the book but I like the way Dickens showed the effects of the utilitarian lifestyle as opposed to the non-utilitarian lifestyle. The utilitarians ultimately ended with a great downfall because the ir narrow-minds could not endure the pressures that life can impose on oneself. The people that did not fall victim to the utilitarian trap were able to live their lives happily and freely, able to love, laugh, and use their imagination which is the way life ought to be lived.Dickens obviously had a definitive opinion of the way life should be lived and did an excellent job of depicting it. His method was somewhat indirect in the sense that he worked backwards to get his point across, but turned out to be very effective as the story progressed. Most of the story revolved around utilitarianism and the study of cold hard facts, but when the character flaws began to surface as a result of this philosophy, Dickens is quick to emphasize them. One actually sees the main character of the book and firm supporter of utilitarianism, Mr.Thomas Gradgrind, experience the faults of his practice and begin to stray from it. Now, after watching his life fall apart, maybe he wishes he were in the cir cus. .. The working and living conditions were often atrocious. Working days were long, and wages low, as employers often exploited their workers and increased their profits by lowering the cost of production by paying meagre wages and neglecting pollution control. Safety measures were often ignored and workers were put out of jobs by the introduction of machines that created a surplus of labour.The rate of accidents was very high. A handicapped worker was doomed to extreme poverty, as there were no social security or insurance payments. The New Poor Law of 1834 was based on the principle of less eligibility, which stipulated that the condition of the able-bodied pauper on relief (it did not apply to the sick, aged, or children) be less eligiblethat is, less desirable, less favorable than the condition of the independent laborer. This reasoning was absolutely correct from the scientific and the Utilitarian point of view, but it rejected any emotional considerations.There was no cons ciousness of class beyond a recognition that the masters constituted a different order of society into which they would never penetrate. Their aspirations were modest to be respected by their fellows to see their families growing up and making their way in the world, and to die without debt and without sin. Trade unions did appear to introduce and protect workers rights, but in the initial stages of industrialisation, the workers were not protected. Purely theoretically, it can be proven that Utilitarianism poses a threat to humanity.For example, if one person must suffer to make other people happy, then in the Utilitarian terms it is acceptable to make that person suffer. One of the Hands in Bounderbys factory, Stephen lives a life of drudgery and poverty. In spite of the hardships of his daily toil, Stephen strives to maintain his honesty, integrity, faith, and compassion. Stephen is an important character not only because his poverty and virtue contrast with Bounderbys wealth and self-interest, but also because he finds himself in the midst of a labor dispute that illustrates the strained relations between rich and poor.Stephen is the only Hand who refuses to join a workers union he believes that striking is not the best way to improve relations between factory owners and employees, and he also wants to earn an honest living. As a result, he is cast out of the workers group. However, he also refuses to spy on his fellow workers for Bounderby, who consequently sends him away. Both groups, rich and poor, respond in the same self-interested, backstabbing way.As Rachael explains, Stephen ends up with the masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Through Stephen, Dickens suggests that industrialization threatens to compromise both the employees and employers moral integrity, thereby creating a social muddle to which there is no easy solution. Through his efforts to resist the moral corruption on all sides, Stephen becomes a martyr, or Christ figure, ultimately dying for Toms crime.When he falls into a mine shaft on his way back to Coketown to clear his name of the charge of robbing Bounderbys bank, Stephen comforts himself by gazing at a particularly bright star that seems to shine on him in his pain and trouble. This star not only represents the ideals of virtue for which Stephen strives, but also the happiness and tranquility that is lacking in his troubled life. Moreover, his ability to find comfort in the star illustrates the importance of imagination, which enables him to escape the cold, hard facts of his miserable existence.InHard Timeshuman relationships are contaminated by economics. The principles of the dismal science led to the formation of a selfish and atomistic society. The social commentary ofHard Timesis quite clear. Dickens is concerned with the conditions of the urban labourers and the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism. He expo ses the exploitation of the working class by unfeeling industrialists and the damaging consequences of propagating factual knowledge (statistics) at the expense of feeling and imagination.However, although Dickens is critical about Utilitarianism, he cannot find a better way of safeguarding social justice than through ethical means. In place of Utilitarianism, Dickens can offer only good-heartedness, individual charity, and Slearys horse-riding like other writers on the Condition of England Question, he was better equipped to examine the symptoms of the disease than to suggest a possible cure (Wheeler, 81). Hard Timesproves that fancy is essential for human happiness, and in this aspect it is one of the best morally uplifting novels.Dickens avoided propagating employer paternalism in the manner of Disraeli, Charlotte Bronte and Gaskell, and strongly opposed commodification of labour in Victorian England. As John R. Harrison has pointed out The target of Dickenss criticism, however, was not Benthams Utilitarianism, nor Malthusian theories of population, nor Smiths free-market economics, but the crude utilitarianism derived from such ideas by Benthamite Philosophical Radicals, which tended to dominate social, political, and economic thinking and policy at the time the novel was written.The Gradgrind/Bounderby philosophy is that the Coketown Hands are commodities, something to be worked so much and paid so much, to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand, something that increased in number by a certain rate of percentage with accompanying percentages of crime and pauperism in fact, something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made. REFERENCES * All references to BenthamsIntroduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislationwill be to the section of it republished in Burr and GoldingersPhilosophy and Contemporary Issues.New York Macmillan,1992. p. 225-232. * Dimwiddy, John. Bentham. OxfordandNew YorkOxfordUP, 1989. * Mitchell,Sally,ed. Victori anBritain An Encyclopedia. New YorkandLondonGarlandPublishing,1988. * Cazamian, Louis. The Social Novel inEngland1830-1850. LondonandBoston Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973. * Woodward, Sir Llewellyn. The Age of Reform 1815- 1870. TheOxfordhistory ofEngland. OxfordOxfordUP, 1962.