In Book 1, Chapter 6, circus performers Kiddlemister and Childers are trying to explain to Gradgrind and Bounderby why Sissy’s father has lately been dejected at work.
“You may or may not be aware [...] that Jupe has missed his tip very often lately."
“Has–what has he missed?” asked Mr. Gradgrind [...]
“Missed his tip.”
“Offered at the garters four times last night, and never done ‘em once,” said Mister Kiddlemister. “Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose in his ponging.”
Jupe has been “miss[ing] his tip,” or habitually missing his jumps in the ring. Likewise, he has “offered at the garters” (refused to jump through a hoop) and is “loose in his ponging” (continually making errors in his somersaulting).
All of these terms are circus slang from the nineteenth century, which Dickens found in the course of his research for the novel. It is important that Childers and Kiddlemister speak in the language specific to their occupation, because it adds realism to this scene, and also marks out Bounderby and Gradgrind as outsiders to the world of the circus.
Throughout the book, the circus is seen as a place where people freely exercise their creativity and imagination. Difficulty in communication between Gradgrind and Bounderby and the circus folk is a direct reflection of the differences in their worldviews and experiences. The worlds they occupy are so different from one another that they don’t even seem to be speaking the same language.
When Stephen goes to seek Bounderby’s advice about how to divorce his wife, he puts his request to him very directly. This passage is an example of dialect in the novel:
“I ha’ coom,” Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor after a moment’s consideration, “to ask you yo’ advice. I need’t overmuch. I were married on Eas’r Monday nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were a young lass–pretty enow–wi’ good accounts of herseln. Well! She went bad–soon. Not along of me. Gonnows I were not a unkind husband to her.”
Careful readers will notice that the speech of some characters, like Stephen and Rachael, is drastically different from the speech of Mr. Bounderby and the Gradgrinds (and even Sissy). The speech of the factory’s “hands,” or workers, is written to imitate the sound of the dialect of working class people in the north of England. Use of dialect, as in this scene, is a hallmark of Realist fiction of the time.
Stephen’s speech, compared to Bounderby’s, is full of small, superficial grammatical errors and dropped consonants. Contrastingly, Bounderby’s speech is grammatically flawless, and no accent is indicated through spelling. This is important, because the differences in their speech highlight the class difference between these two men, which in England functions as both an economic and cultural distinction.
This distinction is the key to understanding this scene. Stephen cannot get a divorce from his wife, though his marriage is in shambles, because he does not have the economic means to do it. Bounderby shames Stephen at one point for wishing to be divorced, but Stephen points out that upper class people with money (like Bounderby) get divorced all the time, and no one criticizes them for it. Stephen’s speech patterns, in their extreme contrast with Bounderby’s, echo the difference in the expectations placed on each man based on his position, as well as differences in their lived experiences.
