Stephen Blackpool is by far one of the most interesting
and tragic characters in this great novel. Consider how he is introduced: we only meet
him after Dickens has shown us the Gradgrind family and Bounderby, and of course the
juxtaposition of the Gradgrinds and Bounderby with Stephen and his life creates a sharp
contrast to these earlier characters. Stephen is not a rich member of Coketown society,
but he is instead one of the "Hands" in Bounderby's factory whose life consists of
poverty and relentless labour. However, in contrast to the "finer" characters of the
novel, Stephen, although he has to put up with so many difficulties in his life, strives
to remain an honest and compassionate individual.
Note how
he is described as a character who has had more than his fair share of
suffering:
It
is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a
misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of
his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to
his own. He had known, to use his words, a peck of
trouble.
Clearly this is a
character Dickens wants us to feel sympathy for, and his wider function in the play is
to show the reality of industrialisation as experienced through the working class - the
day to day workers who have to struggle to survive in a world where the Bounderby's
exploit them at every turn.
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