The significance of the "gibbet that once held a pirate" at the end of chapter one is that it shows you what happens to Magwitch and how cruel the Victorian Law was. ... We are made to have sympathy for Magwitch, we see he is hurt and cold. ... "I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold." ... We see again how hungry Magwitch is "He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious manner." And we see how cold he is "He shivered all the while so violently." ...

• Word Count: 3591
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: High School

From the "coiling serpent" we can direct the idea that Coketown is also an immoral and sinful place and the thought of the "black river", an allusion to the river Styx, almost makes it look like hell. ... Gradgrind's system, and disposition, is clearly depicted in chapter fifteen of book one when Louisa seeks her father's support and advice on the question of a possible marriage to Mr. ...

• Word Count: 2948
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

Stephen Blackpool: The Pathetic Figure Charles Dickens's Hard Times is one of the most important novels in the Victorian Age. He presents an industrial society in nineteenth century in England. In this age, England prospers in manufacture and trade because of high technologies. It is also a time of trouble. Industrial development causes terrible conditions of a working class. ...

• Word Count: 2993
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

Reclusive after Albert died in 1861, she eventually took on the austere role of the black-satined Empress of India, projecting a world-weary glumness that lent gravity to the imperial heyday of the 1870s. ... When Victoria died in 1901, after the longest reign in English history, a newspaper wrote: "Few of us, perhaps, have realized till now how large a part she had in the life of everyone of us; how the thread of her life [bound] the warp of the nation's progress." ... "We have come to regard the Crown as the head of our morality" wrote the historian Walter Bagehot. ...

• Word Count: 6746
• Approx Pages: 27