Tag Archives: Hard Times

Irresponsible Coal Companies

Coal miner owners have been leaving behind messes for others to clean up. Dickens reports something similar in “Hard Times.”

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Scrooge, a GOP Hero

Republicans are once again defending Scrooge and for good reason: when it comes to wealth inequality, he’s their model.

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Biden-Trump Invites Dickens Comparisons

If one thinks of the 2020 election in Dickensian terms, several novels come to mind.

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Imagine Lit Characters in Reality TV

Thursday I came across this enjoyable tweet from one Ross Danniel Bullen, who imagines a Victorian version of the House Hunters television show: Host: Iā€” Henry James: I should like a kitchen whose concept is ā€“ how shall I conceive of it ā€“ not closed, not in some way occluded, but bright, agape, unrestrained as […]

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Literature Has Paul Ryan’s Number

Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe, John Milton, and Thomas Hardy see through men like departing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

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Trump & Bounderby: Cut Taxes or Die

In Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump warned that companies would take their business elsewhere if taxes and regulations on them weren’t lowered. As Dickens noted in “Hard Times,” businesses have been threatening this, like, forever.

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Speaker Paul Ryan in Literature

I’ve written a lot about Paul Ryan and his aspiration to be a John Galt figure. Now that he is Speaker of the House, I review other literary parallels I’ve drawn over the years.

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Why Baltimore Blacks Are Down and Out

Black poverty in Baltimore has racial causes that are invisible to most people. Dickens would understand.

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Clean Air Is Bad for the Nation?!

Republicans complaining about clean air regulations recall the Coketown mill owners in Dickens’ “Hard Times.”

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