Charles Dickens was born in 1812 in England. He belongs to the English realistic writers. He had a very hard life, he always fought for money. He used to work as a publisher, he was an actor in small theater. He had a very good sense of detail and great imagination. Most of his books criticize society and give sympathy to the poor. His most famous novels are: Small Dorrit, David Copperfield, Memories of the Pickwick Club, Oliver Twist, Big Hopes, Hard Times.
Novel Hard Times is about life in England in 19th century. Mr. Gradgrind is taking care of an orphan - Sissy, besides his own kids Louse and Thomas. Later on, Louse marry old Mr. Bounderby, but not from love, but for money to help her brother Thomas who lost all of his money in risk games. Thomas robbed a safe in the bank, but made it so it looked like a social worker Stephen Blackool did it. Police is looking for Stephen, they found him under the mountain cliff dying, but they found out that it was Thomas who robbed the safe. Thomas ran away to south America. Bounderby and Gradgrind died, Luise had many kids, as well as Sissy. Thomas could not stand his bad history, so he was going back to make everything all right, but he died somewhere on the way. This novel shows very long period of time. It first shows a worker in the literature, and it shows the differences between wealthy people and poor. All the story is about money, who has them, lives all right, who doesn´t, is hungry. On one side, this novel is realistic, but it has some romantic features. E.G. a conflict between the dream and the reality ( poor people believe to get rich ), or the romantic love.
Nice thought: „ A stranger in unknown place, who is looking at ten thousand faces and is searching for piece of understanding, but will never find it has much more better company compared to the man, who meets ten faces a day, which turned the other side and used to be faces of his friends.“.