“Fact” versus “Fancy” among Victorian Professionals in Hard Times

Abstract:Mid-19th-century England saw the expansion and growth of professionalism. Read in this context, Hard Times (1854) can be construed as a critique of both Victorian professionals in general and literary professionals in particular, specifically novelists. Thomas Gradgrind emerges as a representative of contemporary fact-oriented professionals, and fiction writers turn out to be their antithesis. The novel defines fiction writers as both agents of morality and informants of essential facts necessary to the social reform of Victorian society, while disqualifying other factualist professionals from such roles. These views imply that Dickens believed his profession had special merits and advantages compared to others. However, they also reflect his anxieties about the unstable and increasingly feminized condition of novelists; in other words, the threat to his own professional and masculine identity. In Hard Times, Dickens was attempting to enhance the respectability of his profession and legitimize its masculinity.