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Fri Mar 31 17:19:06 2006 |
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----------------- 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
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