Hello readers, I'm writing this blog as an assignment by the Department of English, MKBU. We had hindi play screening of "Hard Time" on 25 September 2022, according to that I'm trying to put an overview about this Hindi play.
"Hard Time" is written by Charles Dickens published in 1854 in Great Britain. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 and died on 9 June 1870. He was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
The novel was written in three parts:
Book 1 - Sowing
Book 2 - Reaping
Book 3 - Garnering
'Hard Time' is a Victorian novel of the middle of the nineteenth century. Place setting is a manufacturing town in the south of England 'Coketown'.
The novel is starting from the dialogue of Thomas Gradgride that,
"Now, What I want is fact. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts."
The Hindi play of 'Hard Time' starts with one beautiful song "कमाल की कहानी ए हे तो बड़ी पुरानी जी". The essence of the entire novel is found through this song.
"All stories are one story"
A socio-economical satire novel Hard Time on industrialism presented by the family of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind. who raised their five children along these strict, utilitarian lines.
"Now, what I want is, facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else."
Dickens has tried to show classicism very well by showing the circus family living happily against the family of Gradegrind who only believed in fact and logic. Gradgride's fact and logic experiment selection results were only Louisa. Louisa Gradgride was one of Thomas Gradgrind's five children. She struggled with deep inner confusion, feeling as though she was missing something important in her life. She followed her father's rules in her life.
On the other hand, Dickens showed a happy circus family. In which Cecelia jupe means sissy wanted to study according to her father's dream so she entered the school of Gradgride. She was the only student in the entire school who can live her life well apart from fact and logic and that's why Gradgride didn't like her. Sissy's father leaved her for her better future so Gradgrind took sissy to his house but still he wasn't happy with sissy's behavior. According to him life is only fact, fact and fact on the other hand Sissy lived her life with enjoyment. Sissy remaind at the Gradgrind home to care for the younger children.
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"In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like a beautiful light upon the darkness of the other."
-Louisa Gradgrind
Gradgride's friend Josiah Bounderby was very rich and belonged to the upper class so Gradgrind decided to marry Louisa with this 30 years older man than her. Louisa was sure that she will never love Mr. Bounderby, but according to logic and fact she agreed to marry him anyway, as she said "What does it matter". Because Louisa had no hope in her life, she married Bounderby for the happiness of her brother Tom.
Sissy explained a lot to Louisa to stop this marriage but Louisa did not understand. After the marriage, Tom got a job at Bounderby's bank and his behavior completely changed. Tom ruthlessly exploited everyone for his own pleasure and who ultimately brought the deepest shame and heartbreak upon the family.
The situation of the working class is described very well by the character of the lowest laborers in Coketown’s factories named Stephen Blackpool. The laborers of coketown known as "Hand" in this novel. Stephen Blackpool struggled with his love for Rachael, another poor factory worker. He was unable to marry her because he was already married to a horrible, drunken woman who disappeared for months and even years at a time. Stephen visited Bounderby to ask about a divorce but learnt that only the wealthy can obtain them. Outside Bounderby’s home, he met Mrs. Pegler, a strange old woman with an inexplicable devotion to Bounderby.
An union against Bounderby was organized by the working class in the industry but Stephen Blackpool refused to join the movement. Bounderby asked Stephen to be his spy but Stephen wasn't ready and because of that Bounderby fired him.
Tom took advantage of this and robbed Bounderby's bank, very adroitly he put all the blame on Blackpool. The vanished Hand who was seen loitering outside the bank for several nights just before disappearing from the city.
Gradgrind and Louisa realize that Tom is really responsible for robbing the bank, and they arrange to sneak him out of England with the help of the circus performers with whom Sissy spent her early childhood. They were nearly successful, but were stopped by Bitzer, a young man who went to Gradgrind’s school and who embodied all the qualities of the detached rationalism that Gradgrind once espoused, but who now saw its limits. Sleary, the lisping circus proprietor, arranged for Tom to slip out of Bitzer’s grasp, and the young robber escaped from England after all.
Louisa was not happy with Bounderby and at the same time a young man named Hearthouse arrived in Coketown to begin a political career as a disciple of Gradgrind, who was now a Member of Parliament. Hearthouse fell in love with Louisa. He tried to make louisa his own and in time louisa also fell in love with him.
Mrs.Sparsit, a former aristocrat who had fallen on hard times and now works for Bounderby. She tried to get Louisa down in front of Bounderby. Louisa proved her innocence in front of her father and Mrs. Sparsit disproved. On the other hand, Gradgrind began to realize the imperfections in his philosophy of rational self-interest and regrets that he has spoiled the life of his children due to his rules, facts and logic.
Bounderby continually trumpets his role as a self-made man who was abandoned in the gutter by his mother as an infant. One day, Mrs. Sparsit, anxious to help Bounderby find the robbers, drags Mrs. Pegler a known associate of Stephen Blackpool in to see Bounderby, thinking Mrs. Pegler is a potential witness.
Bounderby recoiled and it was revealed that Mrs. Pegler was really his loving mother, whom he had forbidden to visit him: Bounderby was not a self-made man after all. Angrily, Bounderby fired Mrs. Sparsit and sent her away to her hostile relatives.
This is the end of this hindi play but the novel is ending with the final situations of all these characters that Gradgrind gives up his philosophy of fact and devotes his political power to helping the poor. Bounderby will die alone in the streets of Coketown. Tom realizes the error of his ways but dies without ever seeing his family again. While Sissy marries and has a large and loving family, Louisa never again marries and never has children. Nevertheless, Louisa is loved by Sissy’s family and learns at last how to feel sympathy for her fellow human beings.
This whole novel mainly suggest four things:
1)The mechanization of human beings
2)The opposition between fact and fancy
3)The importance of femininity
4) Unhappy marriages
In short, we can say that Dickens depicts a terrifying system of education where facts, facts, and nothing but facts are pounded into the schoolchildren all day, and where memorization of information is valued over art, imagination, or anything creative. This results in some very warped human beings. Mr. Thomas Gradgrind believes completely in this system, and as a superintendent of schools and a father, he makes sure that all the children at the schools he is responsible for and especially his own children are brought up knowing nothing but data. As a result, things go very badly for his children, Tom Gradgrind and Louisa Gradgrind.
This whole story is about Classicism and industrialism like wise we have so many movies upon this theme.
