character (KARE-ec-ter): a person who is responsible for the thoughts and actions within a story, poem, or other literature. Characters are extremely important because they are the medium through which a reader interacts with a piece of literature. Every character has his or her own personality, which a creative author uses to assist in forming the plot of a story or creating a mood. The different attitudes, mannerisms, and even appearances of characters can greatly influence the other major elements in a literary work, such as theme, setting, and tone. With this understanding of the character, a reader can become more aware of other aspects of literature, such as symbolism, giving the reader a more complete understanding of the work. The character is one of the most important tools available to the author.
Using the definition above, characterize Louisa Gradgrind.
8 comments:
Sarah Kapelner
Through the character Louisa Gradgrind Charles Dickens adds a sense of longing to the novel. Louisa is one of the characters who prominently shows some desire to have been brought up as a wonderer instead of a fact based person. When Louisa is looking at the fire she expresses to Tom that she is pondering the question of when she and him are grown up if they will become wonderers. "I have been wondering about you and me grown up. I have such unmanageable thoughts that they will wonder" (52-53). This is one of the instances in the novel where the author establishes a sense of longing by the characters. Louisa also serves to enforce the idea that family life is cold throughout the novel. This idea is prevalent in Louisa's estranged relationship with her father. A second instance is when she marries Mr. Bounderby even though she does not love him. Louisa gives the reader a more complete understanding of the work by exemplifying the opression that logic causes. The reader can understand the author's negative views of fact when he or she sees how it negatively affects and torments Louisa.
Beau Yurkevicius
Louisa Gradgrind is a quite important character in this story. She is the daughter of Thomas Gradgrind who bases everything off fact. Louisa is taught at a very young age to only accept what is fact and was once told by her father, "Louisa, never wonder!" (48). The intense schooling that Lousia goes through completely alters her mind and how she thinks. She often stares into the fire while letting her mind wonder about life and has been caught several times doing so. Her parents are so strict about this that they would not even let her watch the circus because they feel that the circus is too fanciful and will make her start to believe what is not fact. Louisa states to her father that "You have been so careful of me that I never had a child's heart. You have trained me so well that I never dreamed a child's dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, Father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child's belief or a child's fear" (98). I agree with this quote because the way in which the Gradgrind's have raised their children completely tore away their childhood and any thoughts or fantasies that kids have. Louisa, along with her brother, never had a childhood and I believe that this will have a major affect on the way she will act as an adult and the decisions she will make in the future.
Geode Sibbick - Alright, I can't really remember what number I had, so I'm doing Question 4 and hoping for the best. Ummm, Louisa Gradgrind, she's an interesting character, she seems to be at a stage where she appears cold and aloof to all but her brother. She is also apparently somewhat afraid of her father and distinctly amenable to his wishes, for example, her agreeing to marry Mr. Bounderby when her previous actions towards him expressed sincere dislike. I think that her father's cold and fact based upbringing has crippled her emotional and psychological development until she has become the stereotype of the ideal Victorian woman. She knows that she hates Bounderby, and the very idea of their marriage is disturbing, as he is said to be around 50 and she is around 20, but because she has no idea how she should act due to her scarred development, she acts in the only way she knows how to, and agrees with her fathers wishes. I think that the treatment of women in the Victorian era was massively damaging and wrong, particularly in a time so close to the present day. Women were seen as second class citizens who were inferior to men in almost every respect, and some of the stereotypes in this novel, Gradgrinds wife in particular, seem to show that stereotype in Dickens's writing.
Ah, now I just went to post, and I just saw that 2 other people have responded before me. I agree with Sarahs comments that Louisa seems to be somewhat of a wonderer in the novel, meaning that she is distinctly more prone to metaphysical speculation and less inclined to accept her fathers fact based view of the world. And Beau seems to have said a similar thing, and I agree that her adult life will indeed reflect the kind of upbringing she had at the hands of her father
Nidhi Nivarthi
Louisa Gradgrind seems to be the type of person who is reserved and keeps to herself when she can, as Geode says she acts like this with everyone but her brother. I feel that she is able to get along quiet well with young Tom. I also agree that she seems to be afraid of her father, although I'm not sure I would use the word afraid. She seems more to not be able to stand up against him and rebel against him. She does what he tells her too and even though we see her explain how she and Tom suffers in chapter 8, she does not scream and fight. Louisa quietly takes in her circumstances, although she does not like them.
I like the quote Beau picked to explain how strict her parents are. She has never grown up with the type of childhood normal children are given. She has always been treated like an adult and has been forced to believe in nothing except the Facts. I feel that her father is being unfair and that everyone should be allowed to have a say in the type of life she wants. Louisa is not even able to say anything about the man she is marrying. She clearly does not love him. However, she complies with her father and marries Mr. Bounderby, who is many years older to her.
During the scene, when she is looking into the fire and talking to her brother, Tom, she mentions how she is sorry that she is not able to provide any further entertainment for him. I sympathize with her in this scene especially because I know it must be hard to want to do so much for a person but not being able to because of limits that you are not able to break. She does not have any knowledge about anything other than Facts, as that is how she has always been brought up. Lousia does not want her brother to have to go through the same circumstances she did, but cannont find a way to stop it. Also, because of her upbringing she spends a lot of time to herself, wondering. She cannot necessarily voice all her thoughts out loud so she is forced to keep them hidden to herself. As Sarah mentioned, she can be seen to have a sense of longing, which is the opposite of her father who revolves around Facts.
Louisa can be used to represent a typical woman of that time period, as mentioned by Geode. She does what she is told and what she is expected to do because she does not know how to rebel and stand up for what she believes. She was only taught to obey. I hope her life gets better as she deserves so much more. I am happy that women are not treated the same way they were during the Victorian Era and that we have moved past that.
sam fountain
Louisa Gradgrind, being representative in this novel of the rebellious youth, offers in "Hard Times" someone whom the reader can sympathize with and also relate to. Louisa, although she gives the appearance of being the astute fact machine which her father desires to be, eminates a sense of frustration in the way she speaks and behaves, sometimes even appearing sarcastic. After having been proposed to by Mr. Bounderby through Mr. Gradgrind, Louisa says, "What do I know, father, of tastes and fancies; of aspirations and affections;of all that part of my nature in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be grasped?" When she says this, the reader first thinks she is truely placating to her father's factful and unemotional nature, but her response is so tragic, citing that she never has learnt affection, that is almost seems spiteful. This leads me to belive that Louisa is a character beyond a dutiful daughter but rather a trapped romantic in an unemtional prison.
Sarah Dahlstrom
I agree! Louisa is a very important character to the development thus far of Hard Times. She exemplifies the Gradgrind's idea that fact out does fancy. THrough the way Gradgind has raised her, the reader can assume that she feels disconnected with her feelings. She is forced to live a life deprived of imagination. Yet, when she has the opportunity, she engages in thoughts about the circus, and is even caught watching them. When Gradgrind spies Louisa and Tom viewing the circus, he becomes upset, as this is not how he raised his children.
Forced to live her life in her father's mold, Louisa is left to wonder what life in other ways would be like. As her father deprives her of the opportunity to imagine, she often finds herself wondering. When she speaks with Sissy about Sissy's life, Louisa experiences emotion. "...the trembing of Sissy's lip would be repeated in Louisa's face, and her eyes would follow Sissy with compassion to the door" (61). Talking with Sissy's allows Louisa to feel what it is like to be a real, emotional person, not one forced to abide by her father's rules that fact, and not imagination, is the most important aspect of life.
I agree with all the preceding posts, Louisa Gradgrind is trying to be a rebellious youth but is constantly suppressed by her fact-worshiping father. Even wondering is not allowed as pointed out by Beau. Louisa begins to sympathize with sissy because of her newly found orphan situation as well as her inability to learn facts as hard as she tries. When Louisa asks for letters everyday, it has come to the point where Louisa waits for them too. “Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly as sissy did” (60). I thought Louisa was on the right track near the middle of the reading, for she was rebelling more than ever against facts. I lost faith in her when she agreed to marry Bounderby. Her mind is confined by the logic that her father has drilled into her mind. On page 96 she says “While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for.” (96) Here Louisa throws in the proverbial towel and concedes defeat to the rigid constraints of society. Without the medium of Louisa for the reader to experience the book through, the experience of the novel would be quite different. Just listing what the conditions were like in the time is one thing. However by producing catharsis using a character like Louisa helps the message to hit home in the reader’s heart.
~Mike S.
Nick Montimurro
Louisa is unlike any other character in "Hard Times". In chapter 3 when we first meet Louisa it is very evident that she doesn't live the normal life a girl like her should live. This is because of her father, who is the controlling factor in her life, determining what she can and can't do and how she should think. He has completely brainwashed Louisa and this plays a role throughout the rest of book one. The mood between Louisa and her father is not a healthy one and this is evident on page 12. "There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both...there was a light with nothing to reat upon, a fire with nothing to burn...not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth" (12-13). I chose this quote because it explains the character of Louisa and how her father has taken her childhood away from her.
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