Federico Zamòcl. 5^ASAa.s.2017/2018
MR. BOUNDERBY
Mr. Bounderby is an extract taken from Chapter 4 of Hard Times written by Charles Dickens. The extract is organized in four sequences. The first sequence is an introductory sequence, it begins with an indirect description of the characters, in fact the reader can see that the narrator describes the characters with a negation of a name “Not being Mrs. Grandy, who was Mr. Bounderby?” and then the narrator uses a relationship with another character ,Mr. Gradgrind, to continued the description. The reader can understand that the two protagonist are friends and all the characteristics of the character begin to take shape.
The second sequence is characterized by Mr. Bounderby’s physical description and his role in the society.The reader can understand that man has an important role in society and is part of the upper class, this makes him very attached to everything he owns, he is a materialist. In this description Dickens uses the irony and hyperbole to characterize Mr. Bounderby, he uses the terms inflated like a balloon , a man with great puffed head and forehead. The narrator uses the techniques of grotesque to make the reader at first laugh after reading the description, but then reminding him of the negative aspect of the character.
the character turns out to be a vain person who enhances his self-sufficient figure. According to Puritan convictions Mr. Bounderby from a poverty situation that characterizes his youth succeeds with great efforts to become independent and rich.At the end of the sequence the narrator once again ridicules the character by relating it to the age of his friend.
The third sequence, or the second part of the extract , sets the atmosphere of the extract, the setting is “ a formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge “ where the two protagonists discuss about Mr. Bounderby’s birthday. The narrator wants to underlinethe superior position assumed by man towards the woman, typical characteristic of the Victorian age infact he says : “he thus took up a commanding position from which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind”.
The third sequence is characterized by the passage from telling to showing in which Mr. Bounderby remembers in a cold and dark way his past of poverty, he says: “I hadn’t a shoe to my foot.As to a stocking, I didn’t know such a thing by name . I passed a day in a ditch.” This sentence underlines the situation of poverty and ignorance that change in the time. With this memory Dickens wants to make the reader feel sorry for what happened to the protagonist in his youth, but in reality he is characterizing it in a negative way, as we can see immediately afterwards. In fact, with the passage to showing the narrator no longer filters information, the reader can understand the true nature of the man directly from his words.
The fourth sequence considered the characterization of Mrs. Gradgrind the Mr. Gradgrind’s wife , is description is opposite to the Mr. Bounderby ones, she is “little, thin, white”. Then is present a dialogue between the two characters where the narrator wants to underline the drama of the conditions of life and health that man had to endure in his childhood. in the dialogue one sees perfectly the authority of the husband on the figure of the woman, something very common during the Victorian age where the center of the family was presided over by the father or the husband.