I forgot to include these other sentences on the same theme. Thank you very much for your help.
1) He is compared to a cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts and prepared to blow them clean out of childhood. (What does it mean? I can't express this concept)
2) He usually refers to(addresses) his pupils either with their number or by their bare surname.
3) He picks on a new pupil, calling her "girl number twenty". Then he asks his pupils for her name and she replies her name is Sissy Jupe.
4) In his opinion that isn't a name.
He objects first to her name, which must really be Cecilia, and then to her father's occupation as a horse-rider in a circus.
5)The girl, however, dares to answer back about her father. First, she replies that her father calls her Sissy and then that he belongs to the horse-riding, that is to the world of imagination Mr Grandgrind totally rejects.
6) In contrast, Mr Gradgrind qualifies her father as a horsebreaker, a veterinary surgeon and a farrier. The girl is asked to define a horse but she fails.
7) He turns his attention to another pupil, named Bitzer, who happens to sit in the same ray of sunlight which irradiates her.
8) The depiction of the two pupils is achieved through contrasts. Sissy is described as black-haired and black-eyed. She stands for the world of imagination.
9) Her physical description is in antithesis to Bitzer’s, who is fair-haired, anaemic and colourless. He is obviously a product of Mr. Gradgrind’s soulless education. He represents the world of facts and is completely devoid of feelings.
1) I tried to explain it in your later post. (I read them backwards!) Do you understand better now?
3) He asks the other students and SHE replies? That doesn't quite compute!
5) I also corrected this one in your later post. (I HATE to repeat myself!)
6) I noticed you weren't too fond of "qualifies" earlier. Do you like "classifies" better?
7) irradiates? I must have misread the other that I "thought" said "irritates!" My eyes are VERY fuzzy at this point!
Sra