SOURCE: "Hard Times, " in Imagery and Theme in the Novels of Dickens, Humanities Press, 1974, pp. 77-90.

In the following excerpt, Barnard discusses Dickens's treatment of industrial unrest and his characterizations of Gradgrind and Bounderby in Hard Times.

"I am afraid I shall not be able to get much here."

Dickens's disappointment in the Preston power-loom strike was obvious: the town was quiet, the people mostly sat at home, and there were no hints whatsoever from which he could work up one of his big set-pieces. He would have been much happier, artistically, with something of a more French-revolutionary nature:

I am in the Bull Hotel, before which some time ago the people assembled supposing the masters to be here, and on demanding to have them out were remonstrated with by the landlady in person. I saw the account in an Italian paper, in which it was stated that...