“Gradgrind”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

In the story, the man himself he was the father of five children, naming them after prominent utilitarians such as Robert Malthus. He also ran a model school where young pupils were treated as machines pitchers which were to be filled to the brim with facts.^[3] This satirised Scottish philosopher James Mill who attempted to develop his sons into perfect utilitarians.^[4]

His physical description personified this characterisation of the rigid and insistent pedagogue:^[5]{{quote|"The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders - nay his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat..."|Charles Dickens|Hard Times}}

In a famous passage, a visiting official asks Gradgrind's students "Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" The character Sissy Jupe replies, ingenuously, that she would because, "If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers."{{cquote|"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?"

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy -"

"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it! You are never to fancy."

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind."

"Fact, fact, fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact, fact, fact!" repeated Thomas Gradgrind.^[3]}}

Gradgrind is the most dynamic character in Hard Times since he comes to recognize that emotions are important when his daughter Louisa has an emotional breakdown.

References

1. ^{{cite book |first=Chris |last=Roberts|title=Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme|publisher=Thorndike Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7862-8517-4}}
2. ^{{cite book|title=Oxford English Dictionary|quote= Name of the mill-owner in Dickens's Hard Times (1854), 'a man of facts and calculations', used allusively for: one who is hard and cold, and solely interested in facts.|url=http://www.oed.com|publisher=Oxford University Press}}
3. ^¹{{cite book|title = Hard Times|quote = Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.|author = Charles Dickens|year = 1854|url = http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/786|isbn = 978-0-333-58073-8}}. "What I want is, Facts:" chapter 1. "Fact, fact, fact!:" chapter II
4. ^{{Cite journal|doi=10.1080/00131728309335979|title=Accountability—A Historical Perspective|author=KS Keefover|journal=The Educational Forum|url=http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790148896~db=all|volume=47|issue=3|date=September 1983|pages=365–372|postscript=}}
5. ^{{Cite book|pages=137–138|chapter=10 Dickens and Language|author=Garrett Stewart|title=The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens|isbn=978-0-521-66964-1|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wPe7uCbGvPUC|postscript=}}

}} The text of the entry is "Gradgrind, a character in "Hard Times," who weighs and measures everything by a hard and fast rule and makes no allowances.