A GENETIC STRUCTURALISM ANALYSIS ON UTILITARIANISM IN CHARLES DICKENS’ HARD TIMES

Abstract

Hard Times is one of Charles Dickens works which becomes the satirical novel in eighteenth century. This novel criticizes the British social condition in England in the late of Eighteenth Century which is set in industrial revolution. The British society struggle to get advantages in their lives. They live and do activities to reach things materially. Thus, an ideology appears among them which is called as” Ideology of Utilitarianism”. It influences the society’s idea to get more advantages in every of their actions without thinking the consequences.This article has three problems to discuss. The first is the ideology of utilitarianism in the novel Hard Times. The second is the author’s worldview towards utilitarianism, and the last is the social structure that prevails in Victorian Society of Britain. We use qualitative research method for this article to examine the analysis. This article begins with the analysis of the novel and uses genetic structuralism theory. We analyse the structure of Hard Times, the worldview of the author and Victorian social structure. Therefore, there are some results of this article namely We break the analysis of the binary opposition between some characters who apply the ideology of utilitarianism and another characters who do not apply it in their life, the worldview of the author towards the ideology of utilitarianism and the socio-cultural condition in Britain in Eighteenth century.