The Value In The Landscape

Hard Times is the work written in the gloomy and pessimistic phase of Dickens. For some serious social problems involved in the work, such as the contradiction between the employer and the employee in the industrial society of the Victorian England, Hard Times is often thought not very successful by taking"truthfulness"as the measurement. With the ideology of spatial theory, this thesis tries to give an analysis of the symbolic landscape in the work, so as to illustrate the writer's mediation and criticism of the social problems'essence, and to reveal his true value and idealization expressed through the metaphor in landscape.In spatial criticism,"space"is not subsidiary to time or a static passive container; instead, it is a strong power formed on the basis of certain culture. In literature,"space"is often simply equated with the landscape as one of the elements in a novel; it is the"container"and background of the characters and plot. In spatial criticism, landscape has multiple properties including social, cultural and historical meaning. The landscape is composed of material landscape and non-material landscape, and the latter includes a variety of factors such as ideology and view of the world. The "space" in literary works implies the abstract metaphorical landscape, which is a symbolic system of social culture and value, reflecting the outlook of the writer for life and society. Spatial criticism regards the landscape in literature as a spatial metaphor and puts emphasis on how the space reflects the social relationship and the ideology of the writer, so as to explore the deep social significance of the literature works.The main lines the novel include: Louisa receives the"fact"education of her father Mr. Gradgrind from her age and has her tragic destiny in marrying Bounderby; the contradiction between Bounderby and the working class with Stephan as the representation. The living environment of the characters is very limited: the main characters lead their lives hardly exceeding the scope of Coketown, while the author never attempts to make realistic description of the industrial scene. The spaces of the novel can be generally divided into space for the children, space of the industrialized world, and the idealized space. The landscape description in the first two spaces pictures the objective site with metaphor. The space for the children covers the classroom as the site for education and the family as the site for growing up. The writer targets the domination mode of the capitalistic power for criticizing the inhuman ideology of the industrial society. The space of the industrial world makes further revelation of how the society alienates the people in mind and material as a machinery industry under the control of this value. The circus as the last space is an illusionary space"heterotopies", where the core value of the writer lies. It stands for a abstract space which surpasses the boundary of time. The writer takes Sissy as the speaker of this space to deliver his humanistic belief and the last hope for the society. The circus symbolizes the writer's value and the idealized human world.In short, through the symbolic landscape with metaphor, hyperbole and so on, this novel develops in the allegorical spaces based on the reality, reveals the understanding of the industrial problems'essence under capitalism and expressed the romantic idealization for the human beings'future. This thesis works on representing the value of the author in this novel with spatial criticism and demonstrating more comprehensively the artistic charm and social value of Hard Times.