----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
 
David Levy wrote: 
> 
>_Hard Times_? I've a paper in which I argue that HT might be read as  
>a response to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. I don't make too much of it but  
>when Ruskin first opened the literary defense of Eyre, I think he  
>juxtaposed HT and UTC. The link I take is that for Dickens there is no  
>moral difference between markets and slavery -- everthing depends  
>upon the kindess of  masters. On what side of Eyre was Dickens?    
> 
 
This sounds nutty to me. In *Hard Times*, the relationship between  
employer and "hand" in the Coketown mills is compared unfavorably,  
not to master/slave relationships, but to the relationship of Sleary, the  
circus manager, to his employees. There is clearly an element of   
"paternalism" about this relationship: the riding employees relate to  
Sleary as pater familias and to each other as brothers and sisters. But  
the idea that *slavery* is a form of paternalism has always been simply  
the propaganda of the pro-slavers and has nothing to do with the reality  
of slavery. I don't doubt that Carlyle made this equation but I see no  
trace of it in *Hard Times* or any of the rest of Dickens.   
 
Anyway, you have convinced me I need to read your papers! 
 
Kevin Quinn 
[log in to unmask] 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]