The Fractured Self: A Statistical Analysis of Child Psychology in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times

Abstract

This research is conducted using content analysis, quantitative and qualitative in its approach, to address the images of child psychology in Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1854). Placed against this background of the novel of critique of Utilitarian education and industrial society, the research is that Dickens depicts systematically the deforming effect of the repression of the imagination, of emotional deprivation and of conditioning by machines, in the psychological deformity of the child characters. The approach includes operationalization of the main psychological variables of Imagination Quotient (IQ), Emotional Resilience (ER), and Moral Reasoning Index (MRI) and monitoring their development over the narrative trajectory of a sample of child characters (Louisa, Tom, Sissy, and Bitzer). The study hypothesizes that there is no significant negative relationship between exposure to the Utilitarian system of Gradgrind and healthy psychological development through systematic coding of textual evidence, and some kind of descriptive statistical analysis. The outcome is very much in support of the hypothesis where it is depicted that there were sharp statistically significant differences between the psychologically stunted Gradgrind children against the more integrated Sissy Jupe. The thesis of this paper is that the novel is a complex and information-filled developmental psychology case study that foresees the current appreciation of how environment influences the child’s mind. The results highlight the timelessness of the humanist challenge of the systems by Dickens that reject the needs of the developing self in a holistic manner.