The title of
Book 1, “Sowing,” has an agricultural connotation that would imply a natural,
earthy fostering of knowledge, yet the Book opens with a harsh contrast to this
image. Dickens took this contrast so far as to describe the children as items
on an assembly line, like an “inclined plane of little vessels, then and there
arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of fact poured into them
until they were full to the brim” (9). Ironically, fact is “poured” into the
minds of the youth as if they were inhuman factory products, like “vessels.” This
is very much unlike seeds being planted tenderly in soil, and the irony of this
mechanized process’s label being an agricultural term emphasises how unnatural
and impersonal Gradgrind’s philosophy of fact truly was. But, whether by gentle
planting or by mechanical implantation into the minds of youth, the seeds of
fact were physically implanted—and the stage was thus set for them to “grow” throughout
the rest of the book, as would seeds sowed into soil.
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ReplyDeleteI hadn't made the connection between this image and the title and the strong contrast it creates,but I think this lends important insight into outcomes of the "vessels". With this passage, the educational system is immediately made out to be to be completely unnatural; suppressing normal thought and growth. This can be seen with the pale sickly nature of the students, but also with Mrs. Gradgrind who was constantly ill and "whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her". So with the progression of the book, Dickens seems to show that not only is the method of educating unnatural, but also that it serves to keep the "vessels" in this bleak and unnatural state.
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