An essay for ENG 3120

I wrote this a little while back. I decided to put it on my blog because it is sort of relevant to what this blog is supposed to be about. I'm not, however, going to take the time to properly re-italicize everything in the essay. Also, copy/paste does not like me on this site. NOTE: For all you students out there, stealing this essay (if you're dumb enough to do so) will only get you expelled from school. Don't do it.

Psychological Analysis: Hard Times and John Keats

When one considers the human psyche, two sides can be seen. There is the
logical, scientific mind in every person, and there is the fanciful, imaginative side to balance it out. One of the predominant themes in Hard Times is the industrialist view that
“fact” is the only thing that matters to an individual; “fact” is the only thing that a
person needs and “fact” is what a person needs to be successful. On the other hand, in
much of John Keats poetry, his view of the importance of imagination is portrayed. The
imagination is considered by the author to be the key to a happy life. So, what exactly is
the difference between these two views of life? What can be learned from each of them?
There are positive and negative sides to both views, as it is with so many other things.
Fact must be accompanied by imagination to be entirely successful. This is a battle of
Science and Art.
Let us consider the main proprietor of the idea that “fact is law”, Thomas
Gradgrind of Hard Times. When we look at this man, what do we see? He is a successful
man, he has a family and friend(s), and yet he is leading a sad and unhappy life due to his
lack of mental reward from the imagination. This man bases his whole life on fact. He
only believes in things he can see and touch. He believes that everything in his world is
measurable, but he is not leading a very happy life. Let us suppose that since he is a smart
man, that he knows that his feelings are real and would likely consider them chemical
reactions in the brain, or the body, or wherever biologists at the time thought feelings
came from; he could do something about it. Mr. Gradgrind would therefore, presumably, be able to develop a system of quantifying his feelings. Perhaps even be able to fix
exactly what was causing those feelings. He then would be able to ultimately neutralize
the stimulus that caused them. For example, just as the case with Bentham according to
John Stuart Mill, “He could, with close and accurate logic, hunt half-truths to their
consequences and practical applications, on a scale both of greatness and of minuteness
not previously exemplified” (Hard Times: Contexts pg. 338). If he’s feeling sad or
depressed, he could fix it. If he’s feeling happy, he probably wouldn’t fix it, nor question
it (unless the situation called for such an adjustment). So, if he was feeling that he was
leading a rotten life, wouldn’t he do something about it? Why does he push his daughter
so hard to be like him when she is clearly unhappy and unsatisfied with her life? He
appears to have total control over his world where everything is measurable, quantifiable.
In reality, he cannot change his emotions.
There is much to be considered in Keats’ poetry. For instance, in Sleep and
Poetry, Keats tells of his strategy for learning to be a great poet. He discusses the
difficulty, the length of time that needs to be invested, and the amount of effort that is
required to put into that. Overall, the whole process sounds very much like that of
learning facts. In a letter he wrote to his friend Benjamin Bailey, he articulated his
feelings quite succinctly: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s
affections and the truth of imagination- What the imagination seizes as beauty must be
truth…The imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream- he awoke and found it truth.” Now, let us assume that what Keats said is correct, that in the mind, beauty is
truth. By doing this, we would also have to assume that beauty is an interpretation of the
brain, it is fanciful and imaginative. Fact is truth, by definition. If they both mean the
same thing, then the only difference is how they are carried out. To illustrate this more
clearly, imagine two roads. The first is imagination, a “high” road. The second is fact, a
“low” road. The roads start in the same place and end up in the same place. Now using
our own imaginations, the roads split as would an active jump rope. Our perception of the
rope allows us to see at both the top and bottom position, with two hands at both ends. The high road symbolizes elation; things are fanciful, beautiful, and eloquent. The low
road symbolizes depression; drab, concrete, and boring. Imagination can allow us humans
to experience things beyond our own perspective. Sympathy and empathy are great tools
that are used in growth and adaptation, allowing people to learn social cues and vicarious
learning capabilities. These would not be possible without the use of imagination.
Historical events printed on paper are interpreted by our imagination to be more easily
understood. The fact is that imagination improves facts. “We are not thinking beings with
emotions; we are emotional beings that think” (Joseph LeDoux). Taken literally from the
biological perspective, you could take this to mean that emotions come before logic.
We shall again imagine the jump rope analogy. The two characters, Tom and
Louisa Gradgrind in Hard Times can be considered to have gone down the low road. It’s
easy to blame the way they were raised, considering how young they were when they
started on that path of lowness. Tom, a thief, and Louisa, a heartless (sort of) prostitute;
were raised in a household governed entirely by fact. Any amount of wonderment they
did exhibit was beaten out of them at first sight, the school of thought being that fact was
all that was necessary to lead a good, honest life. This turned out to be a case-study in
favor of a more creative environment. It is because these children weren’t exposed to
creativity that they were unable to learn or understand things that they themselves had not
experienced. Consequences are what make vicarious learning the most useful, the most
successful type of learning. A parent with such a utilitarian view on the world as Mr.
Gradgrind should have realized that. For example, young Tom likely wouldn’t have
stolen from the bank if he could empathize with the people from whom he was stealing.
Another way to think of it is that because he had such a well provided life that he could
not understand the concept of earning money. Not ever having to worry about that sort of
thing before. Also, he never had the opportunity to spend time with people that were less
fortunate. Louisa was fortunate enough to find a small amount of respite from this
methodology with the help of Sissy. However, it was too little too late. The only person
she cared about was her brother Tom and nothing else mattered to her. She married
Bounderby to give Tom a better advantage in the workplace, sacrificing her flesh, even
though she had loathed Bounderby from the first meeting. After an encounter with
Bounderby, which ended in a kiss, Louisa responded to Tom’s quipping in regards to the
spot Bounderby kissed that “You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you like,
Tom. I wouldn’t cry!” Louisa later went on to help her brother escape the authorities. In
the name of love, indeed! If these siblings had been raised in a proper environment where
children are allowed to imagine what they want, to dream as they want, it is a safe
assumption that they would not have become vagrants.
When one considers the character Bounderby, the part of him that stands out is
that he is a liar. He lies about his past, his efforts as a business man, and his own
conscious. He tells everyone that his mother left him at a young age. She did not. He tells
everyone that his grandmother was a boozer and she beat him. She did not. He tells
everyone that he worked his way from the bottom of the figurative “totem pole” to
achieve the success he became known for. He did not. None of these things that he tells
the world are fact. As a man that believes only in fact, how did he come up with these
lies? Certainly he was not hypnotized. Assuredly, no one forced him to say these things.
The only way to conjure up these lies would be if he had cooked them up with his own
imagination. Using his imagination, it would have been easy for him to think for awhile
about what story would increase his reputation. A story that would make people pity him,
indulge him, and oblige him. He imagined that when he told his story, whoever was
within earshot would swoon and give him praise. When one considers Bounderby, does
that person not see that he is trying his best to use the benefit of both worlds? By
claiming to live by the code of “fact”, he is able to earn respect from other businessmen.
He is able to become friends with influential people. In actuality, by living by the code of
imagination, he is able to manipulate fact to serve his own best interests. Bounderby can
easily be thought of as a selfish, loathsome character. However, credit must be given to
him for knowing how to work the angles. While it is impossible for him to be able to
honestly call himself a “self-made man”, he could have merely lived honestly. If he had
done that, it stands to reason that he would not have become quite as successful as he did.
It stands to reason that his life would be almost completely different if it were not for the
imagination.
The imagination is not without its faults. A person with too much of an
imagination that also has little consideration for fact is thought of as a psychotic person in
today’s world. An example would be a child with an imaginary friend. The character
from Hard Times that most closely represents a child with an imaginary friend is Sissy
Jupe. From beginning to end, Sissy is very unaccustomed to the global applications of
fact. When her father deserted her, everyone around her knew that he would likely never
return. Sissy, however, ignored the obvious fact that she would never see him again. She
believed that her father loved her and that nothing could stop them from being father and
daughter. Her reply when faced with the decision of going to live with Mr. Gradgrind or
staying with the circus was “When father comes back, how will he ever find me if I go
away!” (pg. 33, Hard Times) This is but a romantic delusion of reality; love conquers all,
good is better than evil, and all fathers love their daughters. Her imagination played a
trick on her. That’s what a delusion is. In the poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A
Ballad” (pg. 899, Norton), Keats talks about his meeting of a fairy-like woman in a
meadow. He spent a short time with her in a fanciful dream state. He may have dreamt
the whole thing, which is not clear even to the character in the poem. In either case,
meeting this woman stirred his imagination and it left him in such a delusional state that he continued to go to the place he met his fairy so that he might once again see her, if she was real to begin with. The point is, if a person’s imagination is allowed to run rampant,
like a grape vine, it will grow wild and cause many problems.
Every person in the world is capable of both logic and imagination. Every person
in the world has a want for both, whether they admit it or not. Even Thomas Gradgrind, a
stone-cold utilitarian, learned the value of imagination. Sissy Jupe tried so very hard to
become educated in fact the way her father wanted. People in modern society know the value of fact well, and use it too. Fact is valuable, imagination is valuable; to think these
two sides of human functionality could be separate and retain their usefulness is
preposterous. It is the combination of both that defines the human spirit and lifts us above
the other animals.


Works Cited:

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times: an authoritative text, contexts, criticism/ Charles Dickens.-3rd ed. /edited by Fred Kaplan, Sylvere Monod. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 2001.

Lynch, Deidre Shauna and Stillinger, Jack. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 2006.

Mill, John Stuart. [The Mind and Character of Jeremy Bentham] Hard Times: an authoritative text, contexts, criticism/ Charles Dickens.-3rd ed. /edited by Fred Kaplan, Sylvere Monod. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 2001.