Hard Times - For These Times

Hard Times - For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book appraises English society and is aimed at highlighting the social and economic pressures of the times.Hard Times follows a classical tripartite structure, and the titles of each book are related to Galatians 6:7, "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."Book I is entitled "Sowing", Book II is entitled "Reaping", and the third is "Garnering."In Hard Times, Dickens wanted to "strike the heaviest blow in my (his) power". He wished to educate readers about the working conditions of some of the factories in the industrial towns of Manchester, and Preston. Relating to this also, Dickens wished to confront the assumption that prosperity runs parallel to morality, a notion which is systematically deconstructed in this novel through his portrayal of the moral monsters, Mr. Bounderby and James Harthouse. Dickens was also campaigning for the importance of imagination in life, and for people's life to not be reduced to a collection of material facts and statistical analyses.