Troubled Marriages in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times

Abstract

This paper differs from the researches of other critics who study Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times as a political novel that critiques industrialism and the autocratic discourse that oppresses the poor, while at the same time overlooks the social discourse related to marriage and divorce. This paper sheds light on two cases of troubled marriages in the novel and how these failed marriages cause depression and low self-respect for couples. Dickens expresses his boredom and dissatisfaction with his wife, Catherine Hogarth, through the desire of his characters, Stephen and Louisa, for a divorce or legal separation. The poor Stephen cannot divorce his alcoholic wife because it is costly and realizes that the laws of divorce have been made for the rich. The innocent Louisa marries old Bounderby to please her father and to provide financial aid for her dissolute brother and finds out that she has been exploited by the patriarchal rules of her society that ignores her female identity.