Charles Bounderby Analysis

A plot twist intrigues both writer and reader, but the seeds of that turn of events must be sown early to ensure its plausibility. Charles Dickens prepares the reader for plot twists by giving subtle hints through each of the three books for what’s to come. The hints allow for character development to progress, enabling the plot twist to come forth. Bounderby, Louisa, and Gradgrind had the biggest plot twists due to Charles Dickens sowing the seeds early in the novel.

Josiah Bounderby is described as a successful bank owner but an awful, loud, obnoxious, completely self-centered person. Bounderby claims to be a self-made man and boastfully describes being abandoned by his mother as a young boy. Bounderby would exclaim things like “I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn 't know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch,

Gradgrind about the lack of emotions taught in the class. “She uncovered her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall where they might, stood looking at him so colorless, so dishevelled, so defiant and despairing, that he was afraid of her” (pg 208), the quote illustrates how the emotional state Louisa is feeling has taken over physically as well. Louisa has no idea how to understand the emotions being felt towards Harthouse. Louisa was never taught emotions during Mr. Gradgrind education system “raised in a lifestyle of nothing but facts” (pg 9). So, Louisa asks for help from Mr. Gradgrind due to the amount of ignorance in emotions, “all that I know is, your philosophy and your teachings will now save me. How, father, you have brought me to this. Save me by some other means” (pg 212). The emotional state Louisa ended with was foreshadowed through the beginning of the novel by her misery and emptiness that was caused by her father lack of approval of fancy. The build-up anger Louisa had been feeling finally came to light during her emotional