1) Does anyone notice a change in Dickens' writing style that reflects the events going on?
2) Mrs. Pocket's history provides some clues about her role in the family. Can you draw some conclusions?
3) Bonus point for anyone who can define a "grinder" and connect it to the occupation of Matthew Pocket.
4) What do you think is the significance of Mr. Pocket "pulling himself up by the hair"?
4) This chapter is an example of Dickens' take on the bourgeois level of society. First of all....let's define bourgeois. What does it mean? What do you think his opinion of that level of society is?
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ReplyDelete3) On Page 189 it says that Matthew Pocket "had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the Grindstone,—he had wearied of that poor work and had come to London." After doing some research I found out that Charles Dickens is referring to a tutor in this quote. This quote means that Mr Pocket soon got tired of tutoring his dull students which in this quote are referred as to dull blades, so he went elsewhere to find work. This figure of speech is a metaphor as it does not mean literally grinding blades, but instead it is comparing teaching dull students to grinding dull blades.
ReplyDeletegood sleuthing!
ReplyDeleteStartop sounds like the most ridiculous name to give a child; I feel so sorry for him.
ReplyDelete