Hard Times Women and Femininity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

'I have such unmanageable thoughts,' returned his sister, 'that they will wonder.' (1.8.43)

"Unmanageable" is a key word for the novel. It seems applicable to the repressed feelings of many, many characters. Almost every emotion anyone is carrying around inside is unmanageably, damaging, or destructive in some way.

Quote #5

'No! Don't, please; don't. Let me see thee setten by the bed. Let me see thee, a' so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as I see thee when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, never!' He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. After a time he controlled himself, and, resting with an elbow on one knee, and his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining round her head. (1.13.31-32)

Stephen can't allow himself to think about Rachael in a sexualized way (see the moment when he tell Bounderby that she could never be with him outside of marriage). So, he instead transforms her into an angel of purity, another kind of socially acceptable type of femininity. Not sure how fair this is to Rachael herself, though.

Quote #6

[Gradgrind] really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; otherwise he held her calculating powers in such very slight estimation that he must have fallen upon that conclusion. Somehow or other, he had become possessed by an idea that there was something in this girl which could hardly be set forth in a tabular form. Her capacity of definition might be easily stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at nothing; yet he was not sure that if he had been required, for example, to tick her off into columns in a parliamentary return, he would have quite known how to divide her. (1.14.22)

Sissy is the first woman Gradgrind comes across that challenges his philosophical system. Mrs. Gradgrind just let the system run over her like a truck, and Louisa molded herself to fit it. But Sissy's natural empathy and emotional connection with others can't be untaught.