Book 2, Chapter 2:
Mrs. Sparsit sees the time Louisa spends with Harthouse to
be a key to her descent down the staircase. When Louisa was described as
“leaning on his arm”, Dickens juxtaposes the phrase with the idea that she was
propelling “down, down, down Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase.” Normally, to head
downward is symbolic of heading in a doomed direction, and the repetition of
“down” suggests that she was continuously headed towards some kind of doom, and
that Harthouse was associated with this spiral. But Mrs. Sparsit “always” saw
Louisa on a building, “always” heading “down, down, down!” Through this exaggerated
use of “always”, Dickens creates a tone of downfall to suggest that Mrs.
Sparsit is seeing Louisa’a position be continually degraded; degradation occurs when one being lowered on the scale of
honor, and such suggests that the top of the staircase represents the most
honorable position and type of person to society. The pejorative view is
furthered by her shaking her right mitten “with
a fist in it” suggests that Sparsit has become hostile towards Louisa, for
a fist is symbolic of a fight or aggression. So in using the views of Mrs.
Sparsit, Dickens is suggesting that Harthouse serves as a catalyst to Louisa
and brings her down from the society’s ideals.
What do you think this says about Harthouse? And I'm just wondering, do you think he could represent a larger part of society that Dickens was critiquing as "a catalyst of degradation"?
ReplyDeleteWell, when you consider the satire of the book, then Harthouse could be a good catalyst. This is because in the book, a fact-based education is acceptable, and the individuals who follow this system are accepted (established chapters one and two). The individuals who don't follow this system- like Sissy- are taken as challanges to the society. Harthouse, however, does have a fact-based education (124), but he was bored of it (125). He caused Louisa's meltdown, and is considered as a bad person (231) by the characters in the book, like Gradgrind and Bounderby. But, since this is a satire, Dickens may be suggesting that the fact-based education is bad (as seen in today's discussion, page 287) and people like Harthouse are in reality good, because they stray from the fact-based education and pull others away too.
ReplyDeleteJessica K.
Hmmm that's interesting. So do you think that when Dickens said, "He was touched in the cavity where is heart should have been" (225) he was being satirical not serious? It could be, since it is kind of an excessive description considering there are (at least in my opinion) much worse, more heartless, characters in the book (such as Bounderby). Anyway, that's a cool interpretation!
ReplyDelete