Stephen Blackpool's name is significant in the story "Hard
Times" because he is a man who does not seem to get out of falling victim of the muck of
society, even though he is a good man.
He was a displaced
worker who only wanted to work to be able to make his own living. Conditions were horrid
in England at the time that industrialization was on the advent, hence, the word around
was bleak, dark, and dirty not only in the atmosphere of it all, but in the attitudes of
people.
To top his misery, he was accused of a robbery that
he would have never committed, and his name was soiled in the city until the day of his
acquittal.
In addition to this, Blackpool is also the name
of a sister city of Liverpool, which was given the name of Blackpool for its industrial,
darkened surroundings. Therefore, he is also surrounded by polluted people and by the
mentality that arises as a result of the survival of the fittest that occurs in a
society whose lower classes are feeling the crunch of an unfair economy that only
benefits the rich and the upper-middle classes.
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