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Hard Times
Charles Dickens
Biography of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7, 1812 to John and
Elizabeth Dickens. He was the second of eight children. His mother had been in
service to Lord Crew, and his father worked as a clerk for the Naval Pay office.
John Dickens was imprisoned for debt when Charles was young. Charles Dickens
went to work at a blacking warehouse, managed by a relative of his mother, when
he was twelve, and his brush with hard times and poverty affected him deeply. He
later recounted these experiences in the semi-autobiographical novel David
Copperfield. Similarly, the concern for social justice and reform that surfaced
later in his writings grew out of the harsh conditions he experienced in the
warehouse.

As a young boy, Charles Dickens was exposed to many artistic and literary works
that allowed his imagination to grow and develop considerably. He was greatly
influenced by the stories his nursemaid used to tell him and by his many visits to
the theater. Additionally, Dickens loved to read. Among his favorite works were
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and Arabian
Nights, all of which were picaresque novels composed of a series of loosely linked
adventures. This format no doubt played a part in Dickens' idea to serialize his
future works.

Dickens was able to leave the blacking factory after his father's release from
prison, and he continued his education at the Wellington House Academy. Although
he had little formal schooling, Dickens was able to teach himself shorthand and
launch a career as a journalist. At the age of sixteen, Dickens got himself a job as
a court reporter, and shortly thereafter he joined the staff of A Mirror of
Parliament, a newspaper that reported on the decisions of Parliament. During this
time, Charles continued to read voraciously at the British Library, and he

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experimented with acting and stage-managing amateur theatricals. His experience

acting would affect his work throughout his life—he was known to act out
characters he was writing in the mirror and then describe himself as the character
in prose in his novels.

Quickly becoming disillusioned with politics, Dickens developed an interest in social

reform and began contributing to the True Sun, a radical newspaper. Although his
main avenue of work would consist in writing novels, Dickens continued his
journalistic work until the end of his life, editing The Daily News, Household
Words, and All the Year Round. His connections to various magazines and
newspapers as a political journalist gave him the opportunity to begin publishing his
own fiction at the beginning of his career. He would go on to write fifteen novels.
(A final one, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was left unfinished upon his death.)

While he published several sketches in magazines, it was not until he serialized The
Pickwick Papers over 1836-37 that he experienced true success. A publishing
phenomenon, The Pickwick Papers was published in monthly installments and sold
over forty thousand copies of each issue. Dickens was the first person to make the
serialization of novels profitable and was able to expand his audience to include
those who could not normally afford such literary works.

Within a few years, Dickens was regarded as one of the most successful authors of
his time, with approximately one out of every ten people in Victorian England avidly
reading and following his writings. In 1836 Dickens also married Catherine Hogarth,
the daughter of a co-worker at his newspaper. The couple had ten children before
their separation in 1858. Catherine's younger sister Mary lived with the couple, and
Dickens was very attached to her. He was deeply traumatized by her death at the
age of seventeen, and she is believed to have provided inspiration for a number of
his idealized, angelic heroines such as Little Nell and Florence Dombey.

Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby followed in monthly installments, and both
reflected Dickens' understanding of the lower classes as well as his comic genius.

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In 1843, Dickens published one of his most famous works, A Christmas Carol. His
disenchantment with the world's economic drives is clear in this work: he blames
much of society's ills on people's obsession with earning money and acquiring status
based on money.

His travels abroad in the 1840s, first to America and then through Europe, marked
the beginning of a new stage in Dickens' life. His writings became longer and more
serious. In David Copperfield (1849-50), readers find the same flawed world that
Dickens discovered as a young boy. Dickens published some of his best-known
novels, including A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, in his own weekly
periodicals.

The inspiration to write a novel set during the French Revolution came from
Dickens' faithful annual habit of reading Thomas Carlyle's book The French
Revolution, first published in 1839. When Dickens acted in Wilkie Collins' play The
Frozen Deep in 1857, he was inspired by his own role as a self-sacrificing lover. He
eventually decided to place his own sacrificing lover in the revolutionary period, a
period of great social upheaval. A year later, Dickens went through his own form of
social change as he was writing A Tale of Two Cities: he separated from his wife,
and he revitalized his career by making plans for a new weekly literary journal
called All the Year Round. In 1859, A Tale of Two Cities premiered as a series in
this journal. Its popularity was based not only on the fame of its author, but also
on its short length and radical (for Dickens' time) subject matter.

Dickens became involved in theatrical collaborations with his friend, the novelist
Wilkie Collins. In 1857, while interviewing actresses for a play the two had written
together, Dickens met Ellen Ternan. Despite already being married, and the age
difference between the two (Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18), the two fell in love.
This meeting precipitated the end for Dickens of what was already an unhappy
marriage. Dickens separated from his wife Catherine in 1858. While his
relationship with Ellen was kept very discreet, especially considering Dickens's
celebrity, the two travelled together regularly, and Dickens supported her
financially until the time of his death.

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Dickens' health began to deteriorate in the 1860s. In 1858, in response to his

increasing fame, he had begun public readings of his works. These exacted a great
physical toll on him. An immensely profitable but physically shattering series of
readings in America in 1867-68 sped his decline, and he collapsed during a
"farewell" series in England.

On June 9, 1870, Charles Dickens died. He was buried in Poet's Corner of

Westminster Abbey. Though he left The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished, he
had already written fifteen substantial novels and countless shorter pieces. His
legacy is clear. In a whimsical and unique fashion, Dickens pointed out society's
flaws in terms of its blinding greed for money and its neglect of the lower classes
of society. Through his books, we come to understand the virtues of a loving heart
and the pleasures of home in a flawed, cruelly indifferent world. Among English
writers, in terms of his fame and of the public's recognition of his characters and
stories, many consider him second only to William Shakespeare.

Summary
Mr. Gradgrind is a man of "facts and calculations." He identifies a student, called
Girl number twenty, who replies that her name is Sissy Jupe. Gradgrind corrects
her that her name is Cecilia regardless of what her father calls her. Jupe's father
is involved in a horse-riding circus and this is not respectable in Gradgrind's
opinion. He advises Cecilia to refer to her father as a "farrier" (the person who
shoes a horse) or perhaps, a "veterinary surgeon." Sissy Jupe is a slow learner,
among the group of stragglers who admit that they would dare to carpet a room
with representations of flowers because she is "fond" of them. Sissy is taught that
she must not "fancy" and that she is "to be in all things regulated and governed by
fact."

Mr. Josiah Bounderby is Mr. Gradgrind's closest friend, and just like Gradgrind he
is a man "perfectly devoid of sentiment." Bounderby is very wealthy from his trade
as a banker, a merchant and a manufacturer among other things. He has an

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imposing figure and his entire body is oversized, swelled and overweight. He calls
himself a "self-made man" and he always tells his friends (the Gradgrinds,
primarily) stories of how he grew up in the most wretched conditions. Mrs.
Gradgrind has a very emotional temperament and she usually faints whenever Mr.
Bounderby tells his horror stories of being born in a ditch or having lived the first
ten years of his life as a vagabond.

Mr. Gradgrind is at first hesitant but he soon agrees with Bounderby that Cecilia
must be removed from the school so that she might not infect the other students
with her ideas. He and Bounderby find Sissy and proceed towards the public-house
where she lives to deliver the news. Looking through the room, Sissy finds that the
trunk is empty and she is suddenly fearful. The other members of the performing
group also live in the public house and they try to explain to Sissy that her father
has abandoned her. He has not left out of ill will, but because he thinks that she
will have a better life without him as her guardian. It was with this intention that
he had her enrolled in Mr. Gradgrind's school. Mr. Bounderby is morally enraged
that a man would actually desert his own daughter. She has no other family in the
world.

This certainly changes Mr. Gradgrind's plans as he had originally come to the public
house with the intention of dismissing Jupe from the school. Despite Bounderby's
opinion, Gradgrind does not think it is in good taste to abandon Sissy after she has
already been abandoned. Gradgrind gives her a choice to make on the spot: either
she can stay with the Sleary performing group, remain in Pegasus's Arms and never
return to his school, or she can leave Sleary's company, live with the Gradgrinds
and attend school. If she chooses this option, of course, she is forbidden to have
extended contact with the performers though they are the only people that she
knows. It is a difficult decision for Sissy to make but at the urging of Josephine
Sleary, Sissy chooses to leave Pegasus's Arms and join the Gradgrinds.

The town library was sometimes the source of Gradgrind's dismay when readers
opted for literature rather than geometry and drama instead of statistics. This
sort of existence has become unbearable for the young Gradgrinds. Tom tells his

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sister: "I am sick of my life, Loo. I hate it altogether." He and Louisa are both
sulking in their room and Tom insists that Louisa is the only person in his life who is
capable of making him happy. Everyone else has fallen under the sway of dullness
but Louisa has managed to keep a spark of the interesting alive.

The story turns to the workers of Coketown, a group of laborers known as "the
Hands." Among them lived a decent man named Stephen Blackpool. He is forty but
he looks much older and has had a hard life. In fact, those who know him have
nicknamed him "Old Stephen." Stephen has very little as far as intelligence or
social graces and he is very simply defined as "good power-loom weaver, and a man
of perfect integrity." After his long hours in the factory, once the lights and bells
are shut down, he looks for his friend Rachael. On this night, he cannot find her
but just when he is convinced that he has missed her, she appears.

Rachael is also a laborer, she is thirty-five years old and she is a gentle, caring
person. They have been friends for many years and Stephen takes consolation in
this. Whenever his life seems unbearable, Stephen knows that Rachael will make
him feel better. She repeatedly advises him that when life is as unpleasant as
theirs, it is better not to think about it at all. They walk together towards the part
of town where they both live. Here, the houses are extremely small and dirty.
Stephen does not even live in a house he lives in a small room above a shop. He tries
best to keep things as orderly as possible and he is always courteous in regards to
the woman who rents the small room to him.

It seems that this night is full of bad luck for Stephen. He enters his room and he
stumbles against a wretched figure that frightens him. A drunk and disabled
woman is in his room and she is apparently someone that he knows. As the chapter
ends, she laughs at Stephen scornfully. She has returned from some part of the
past to ruin his life and give him even more to worry about. She passes out in a
drunken stupor and Stephen is left to his misery.

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Mr. Gradgrind prepares to have his serious discussion with Louisa, who insists upon
remaining dispassionate throughout the entire encounter. Gradgrind tells his
daughter that she is the subject of a marriage proposal and Louisa does not
respond. Gradgrind expects Louisa to convey some emotion, but she is entirely
stoic and reminds Gradgrind that her upbringing has prevented her from knowing
what emotions to express.

Gradgrind explains that it is Mr. Bounderby who has made the marriage proposal
and Louisa refrains from registering any emotional response. When her father asks
her what she intends to do, Louisa turns the question back to him and asks him
what he thinks she ought to do. Gradgrind looks at the situation analytically and
dismisses the fact of Bounderby being fifty years old. The marriage has little to
do with love and is simply a matter of "tangible Fact." In the end, the decision is
for Louisa to make. But as she does not see that any opportunity will bring her
happiness she realizes that it does not matter what she does. She continually
repeats the phrase "what does it matter?" and this frustrates Mr. Gradgrind.

In the end, Louisa is still emotionless and she replies: "I am satisfied to accept his
proposal." Mr. Gradgrind is very pleased and he kisses his daughter on the
forehead. When Mrs. Gradgrind hears the news she is happy but then she works
herself into a fit and soon passes out. Sissy Jupe is present and she is, perhaps,
the only one who is able to sense the difference in Louisa. Louisa keeps herself at a
distance and is "impassive, proud and cold." Sissy feels a mixture of wonder, pity
and sorrow for Louisa.

Mr. Gradgrind is hiring the stranger, Mr. James Harthouse, as an instructor in his
school. He will be one of many who are trained in logic and statistics and eager to
help relieve children of their imaginations. James Harthouse is the younger
brother of a member of Parliament and as he has become an adult, he has failed to
find a vocation or even a steady hobby to fill his hours. After trying several other
things, Harthouse decided that he might as well give statistics a try and so he had
himself coached and instructed in various philosophies.

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Meanwhile, Tom Gradgrind has become quite wayward despite the rigors of his
education and he is incredibly hypocritical and disrespectful. He makes no effort
to hide his disdain for Mr. Bounderby even as he fascinated by Mr. Harthouse's
flashy clothes and he befriends him for this largely superficial reason. Tom very
quickly becomes a pawn of Mr. Harthouse. After a little alcohol and some tobacco,
Tom is loose-lipped and uninhibited in his criticism of Mr. Bounderby. At one point,
Tom goes as far as to say that he is the only person that Louisa cares about and
that it is only for his well-being that she agreed to marry Mr. Bounderby. Without
realizing it, Tom is laying the seeds for a potential affair between Harthouse and
his sister. As Harthouse becomes more enrapt with Louisa, Tom offers more and
more secrets until he finally falls into a stupor.

Stephen Blackpool is in the company of Mr. Bounderby, Louisa, Mr. Harthouse and
Tom. Mr. Bounderby intends to make an example of Stephen and present him to Mr.
Harthouse as a sort of specimen of the lower classes. Bounderby does not
appreciate Stephen's criticism and on a whim he decides to repay Stephen's
loyalty by accusing him of being disloyal. He goes as far as to say that Stephen has
betrayed both his employer and his fellow employees and he caps his argument off
by firing Stephen "for a novelty."

Mrs. Sparsit watches from her post at the bank and then when the timing is right
she hastily makes her way to the country-house and sure enough she finds Louisa
and James sitting in a garden together. He confesses his love but Louisa remains
resistant. He implores her to at least commit to seeing him but she refuses. He
suggests a change of venue and the entire time, Mrs. Sparsit, hidden behind the
shrubs, gloats to herself that the two young people have no idea that they are
being watched.

Harthouse leaves and Louisa soon follows. Mrs. Sparsit assumes that Louisa has
eloped and that they have a planned meeting-place and so she trails Louisa as best
as she can. It is raining and Mrs. Sparsit is already dirty and muddy from hiding

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and crawling through the bush. Sparsit follows Louisa to the train station and
thinks that Louisa has hired a coachman to get her to Coketown faster but after a
few moments Sparsit sees that she is incorrect. Louisa has boarded some train. "I
have lost her" is Mrs. Sparsit's exclamation of defeat and frustration.

Mrs. Sparsit is still stirring up trouble. All of her running back and forth in the
nighttime rain has caused her to get a violent cold but this does not stop her from
completing her mission. She went as far as London to find Mr. Bounderby and
confront him with the news of Louisa's conversation in the garden, and her flight
from the country house presumably, to continue her romantic affair. After giving
the news, Mrs. Sparsit collapses in an incredibly theatrical display. Bounderby
brings her back to Coketown and he carries her along with him to Stone Lodge,
where he intends to confront Mr. Gradgrind (unaware that Louisa is also at Stone
Lodge).

Mrs. Sparsit's story is presented and Mr. Gradgrind confesses that he is already
aware of these details and that Louisa has preserved her honor by returning to her
father's house when she did not know how to defend herself from temptation on
her own. Mrs. Sparsit is now considered in the worst light for she has cast
aspersions and criticized Louisa without due cause. She can do little more than
utter an apology and begin crying profusely as she is sent back to town.

Louisa and her father are both convinced that Tom is involved in a bank theft and
Louisa correctly suspects that after she left Stephen's room, Tom made some sort
of false offer to Stephen, in her name, encouraging him to loiter outside of the
bank. Mr. Gradgrind agrees that Tom has probably done this, knowing that Stephen
planned to leave town and would be the most logical suspect.

In this moment of despair, again it is Sissy who has orchestrated a plan for
deliverance and rescue. She could easily see that Tom was guilty and she sent him
to Mr. Sleary and her old friends who were only a few towns away. Tom said that
he had very little money and did not know who could hide him and this was the most

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reasonable solution as Sissy had read of the circus in the paper just the day
before. It is also favorable that the town is only a few hours from the port of
Liverpool and Mr. Gradgrind hopes that he might be able to get his son passage on
a ship that will send him far away from shame and punishment.

Character List
Bitzer

Bitzer is a classmate of Tom, Louisa and Sissy. As a young adult he works as a clerk
in Bounderby's bank and he unsuccessfully apprehends Tom as the thief.

Stephen Blackpool

Stephen is a poor laborer in one of Josiah Bounderby's factories. He is married to

a drunk woman who wanders in and out of his life. After losing his job at the
factory, Stephen is forced to leave Coketown and find work elsewhere. In his
absence, Stephen is accused of committing a crime that he did not actually commit.
When returning to Coketown to defend his honor, Stephen falls into a pit and
injures himself. He is rescued but he eventually dies.

Mr. Josiah Bounderby

Mr. Bounderby is one of the central characters of the novel. He is a business

acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind. He employs many of the characters in the
novel and he is very wealthy. He marries Louisa Gradgrind (several decades his
junior) and the marriage eventually ends unhappily. In the tumult of a bank robbery
investigation, Bounderby's true identity is revealed much to his shame. Throughout
the novel, Bounderby is an emblem of hypocrisy.

Louisa Gradgrind/Louisa Bounderby

Louisa is one of the central characters of the novel. She is the eldest of the
Gradgrind children and the prize pupil of the educational system. When she grows

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older, her father arranges her marriage to Mr. Bounderby. Throughout her life,
Louisa is very unfulfilled because she has been forced to deny her emotions. She
has an emotional breakdown after being tempted into infidelity by Mr. Harthouse.
Her marriage with Mr. Bounderby is soon dissolved and she never remarries.

Mr. Thomas Gradgrind

Mr. Gradgrind is the intellectual founder of the Gradgrind educational system and
he is also a member of Parliament. He represents the rigor of "hard facts" and
statistics. It is only after Louisa's emotional breakdown that he has a change of
heart and becomes more intellectually accepting of enterprises that are not
exclusively dedicated to profit and fact.

Mrs. Gradgrind

Mrs. Gradgrind is the ignorant wife of Thomas Gradgrind and the mother of Louisa,
Tom and the other Gradgrind children. She dies in the middle of the novel.

Jane and Adam Smith Gradgrind

The younger children of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind. They are better off than Tom and
Louisa because Sissy Jupe has assisted in their upbringing.

Tom Gradgrind

Tom is also referred to as "the whelp." He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind and
an employee of Mr. Bounderby. He is resentful towards his sister, Louisa, though
she is only kind towards him. His ultimate misdeed comes when he steals money
from his safe in the bank and then announces the loss as a true theft. In the end,
Tom is forced to flee the country to escape punishment. He dies overseas and full
of regret.

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James "Jem" Harthouse

The younger brother of a member of Parliament, Harthouse has agreed to spend

some time teaching in the Gradgrind's school. He is lazy and immodest and finds
himself tempting Louisa with offers of romance.

Cecilia "Sissy" Jupe

Sissy is abandoned by her father who is a well-meaning circus performer. He feels

that she will have a better life if he is not able to hinder her progress in society.
Sissy lives with the Gradgrind family but she is a poor pupil at their school. In
contrast to Mr. Gradgrind, Sissy lives by the philosophy of emotion, fancy, hope
and benevolence. In the end, her kindhearted nature softens the rough edges of
the Gradgrind family and they come to be grateful for what she has done for them.
At the end of the novel, Dickens writes that Sissy grows ever more happy and she
eventually has children of her own to care for.

Signor Jupe

The horse-trainer/circus-performer who is the father of Cecilia. He sends her on

an errand to "fetch the nine oils" as an ointment for his aching muscles. When she
returns to their lodging, he is gone.

Mrs. Pegler/"The mysterious old woman"

Mrs. Pegler is the old woman who makes a yearly pilgrimage to Coketown. At the
end of the novel, she is discovered to be the mother of Mr. Josiah Bounderby.

Rachael

The unmarried companion of Stephen Blackpool. She keeps his spirits up while he is
suffering and after he has left Coketown, she takes it as her responsibility to
defend his honor.

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Slackbridge

The dishonorable and deceitful leader of the labor movement: The United
Aggregate Tribunal. Slackbridge takes the legitimate concerns of the laborers and
exploits them for his own power.

Mr. Sleary

Is the manager of a traveling circus. After providing for Sissy at the beginning of
the novel he assists Tom's escape at the novel's end.

Mrs. Sparsit

Mrs. Sparsit is a widow who has fallen on hard times. She is retained in Mr.
Bounderby's service until her snooping gets her fired.

Themes

Surveillance and Knowledge

One of Dickens's major themes centers on the idea of surveillance and knowledge.
As is the case in other novels by the author, there are characters who spend time
keeping secrets and hiding their history and there is another set of characters
who devote themselves to researching, analyzing and listening in on the lives of
others. Mrs. Sparsit and Mr. Gradgrind are both masters of surveillance but
Sparsit is more gossipy while Gradgrind is more scientific. Another operator to
consider is James Harthouse who devotes himself to the task of understanding and
"knowing" Louisa. From all three of these characters we get the idea that
knowledge of another person is a form of mastery and power over them. Besides
Louisa, Josiah Bounderby is another victim of surveillance. Without knowing what
she has done, Mrs. Sparsit manages to uncover the secret of Bounderby's
upbringing and his foul lies about being a self-made man.

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"Fancy" vs. "Fact"

The opposition between "fancy" and "fact" is illustrated from the earliest pages of
the novel. Clearly, the Gradgrind school opposes fancy, imaginative literature and
"wondering." Instead, they encourage the pursuit of "hard fact" and statistics
through scientific investigation and logical deduction. But the Gradgrinds are so
merciless and thorough in their education that they manage to kill the souls of
their pupils. Sissy Jupe and the members of Sleary's circus company stand as a
contrast, arguing that "the people must be amused." Life cannot be exclusively
devoted to labor.

Fidelity

The theme of fidelity touches upon the conflicts of personal interest, honesty and
loyalty that occur throughout the novel. Certainly, characters like Josiah
Bounderby and James Harthouse seem to be regularly dishonest while Louisa
Gradgrind and Sissy Jupe hold fast to their obligations and beliefs. In Louisa's
case, her fidelity is exemplified in her refusal to violate her marital vows despite
her displeasure with her husband. Sissy's exemplifies fidelity in her devotion to
the Gradgrind family and perhaps even more remarkably, in her steadfast belief
that her father is going to return for her seeking "the nine oils" that she has
preserved for him.

Escape

The theme of escape really underscores the difference between the lives of the
wealthy and the lives of the poor. In Stephen Blackpool, we find a decent man who
seeks to escape from his failed marriage but he cannot even escape into his dreams
for peace. On the other hand, we find Tom Gradgrind who indulges in gambling,
alcohol and smoking as "escapes" from his humdrum existence. And after he
commits a crime, his father helps him to escape through Liverpool. Again, Louisa
Gradgrind desires a similar escape from the grind of the Gradgrind system, though
she resorts to imagined pictures in the fire rather than a life of petty crime.
Finally, "Jem" Harthouse rounds out the options available to the nobility. With all

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of his life dedicated to leisure, even his work assignment is a sort of past-time
from which he easily escapes when the situation has lost its luster.

The Mechanization of Human Beings

Hard Times suggests that nineteenth-century England’s overzealous adoption of

industrialization threatens to turn human beings into machines by thwarting the
development of their emotions and imaginations. This suggestion comes forth
largely through the actions of Gradgrind and his follower, Bounderby: as the
former educates the young children of his family and his school in the ways of
fact, the latter treats the workers in his factory as emotionless objects that are
easily exploited for his own self-interest. In Chapter 5 of the first book, the
narrator draws a parallel between the factory Hands and the Gradgrind children—
both lead monotonous, uniform existences, untouched by pleasure. Consequently,
their fantasies and feelings are dulled, and they become almost mechanical
themselves.

The mechanizing effects of industrialization are compounded by Mr. Gradgrind’s

philosophy of rational self-interest. Mr. Gradgrind believes that human nature can
be measured, quantified, and governed entirely by rational rules. Indeed, his school
attempts to turn children into little machines that behave according to such rules.
Dickens’s primary goal in Hard Times is to illustrate the dangers of allowing humans
to become like machines, suggesting that without compassion and imagination, life
would be unbearable. Indeed, Louisa feels precisely this suffering when she
returns to her father’s house and tells him that something has been missing in her
life, so much so that she finds herself in an unhappy marriage and may be in love
with someone else. While she does not actually behave in a dishonorable way, since
she stops her interaction with Harthouse before she has a socially ruinous affair
with him, Louisa realizes that her life is unbearable and that she must do
something drastic for her own survival. Appealing to her father with the utmost
honesty, Louisa is able to make him realize and admit that his philosophies on life
and methods of child rearing are to blame for Louisa’s detachment from others.

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The Importance of Femininity

During the Victorian era, women were commonly associated with supposedly
feminine traits like compassion, moral purity, and emotional sensitivity. Hard Times
suggests that because they possess these traits, women can counteract the
mechanizing effects of industrialization. For instance, when Stephen feels
depressed about the monotony of his life as a factory worker, Rachael’s gentle
fortitude inspires him to keep going. He sums up her virtues by referring to her as
his guiding angel. Similarly, Sissy introduces love into the Gradgrind household,
ultimately teaching Louisa how to recognize her emotions. Indeed, Dickens
suggests that Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy of self-interest and calculating
rationality has prevented Louisa from developing her natural feminine traits.
Perhaps Mrs. Gradgrind’s inability to exercise her femininity allows Gradgrind to
overemphasize the importance of fact in the rearing of his children. On his part,
Bounderby ensures that his rigidity will remain untouched since he marries the
cold, emotionless product of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind’s marriage. Through the
various female characters in the novel, Dickens suggests that feminine compassion
is necessary to restore social harmony.

Motifs

Bounderby’s Childhood

Bounderby frequently reminds us that he is “Josiah Bounderby of Coketown.” This

emphatic phrase usually follows a description of his childhood poverty: he claims to
have been born in a ditch and abandoned by his mother; raised by an alcoholic
grandmother; and forced to support himself by his own labor. From these
ignominious beginnings, he has become the wealthy owner of both a factory and a
bank. Thus, Bounderby represents the possibility of social mobility, embodying the
belief that any individual should be able overcome all obstacles to success—
including poverty and lack of education—through hard work. Indeed, Bounderby
often recites the story of his childhood in order to suggest that his Hands are
impoverished because they lack his ambition and self-discipline. However, “Josiah
Bounderby of Coketown” is ultimately a fraud. His mother, Mrs. Pegler, reveals that

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he was raised by parents who were loving, albeit poor, and who saved their money
to make sure he received a good education. By exposing Bounderby’s real origins,
Dickens calls into question the myth of social mobility. In other words, he suggests
that perhaps the Hands cannot overcome poverty through sheer determination
alone, but only through the charity and compassion of wealthier individuals.

Clocks and Time

Dickens contrasts mechanical or man-made time with natural time, or the passing
of the seasons. In both Coketown and the Gradgrind household, time is
mechanized—in other words, it is relentless, structured, regular, and monotonous.
As the narrator explains, “Time went on in Coketown like its own machine.” The
mechanization of time is also embodied in the “deadly statistical clock” in Mr.
Gradgrind’s study, which measures the passing of each minute and hour. However,
the novel itself is structured through natural time. For instance, the titles of its
three books—“Sowing,” “Reaping,” and “Garnering”—allude to agricultural labor and
to the processes of planting and harvesting in accordance with the changes of the
seasons. Similarly, the narrator notes that the seasons change even in Coketown’s
“wilderness of smoke and brick.” These seasonal changes constitute “the only stand
that ever was made against its direful uniformity.” By contrasting mechanical time
with natural time, Dickens illustrates the great extent to which industrialization
has mechanized human existence. While the changing seasons provide variety in
terms of scenery and agricultural labor, mechanized time marches forward with
incessant regularity.

Mismatched Marriages

There are many unequal and unhappy marriages in Hard Times, including those of
Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind, Stephen Blackpool and his unnamed drunken wife, and most
pertinently, the Bounderbys. Louisa agrees to marry Mr. Bounderby because her
father convinces her that doing so would be a rational decision. He even cites
statistics to show that the great difference in their ages need not prevent their
mutual happiness. However, Louisa’s consequent misery as Bounderby’s wife
suggests that love, rather than either reason or convenience, must be the
foundation of a happy marriage.

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Symbols

Staircase

When Mrs. Sparsit notices that Louisa and Harthouse are spending a lot of time
together, she imagines that Louisa is running down a long staircase into a “dark pit
of shame and ruin at the bottom.” This imaginary staircase represents her belief
that Louisa is going to elope with Harthouse and consequently ruin her reputation
forever. Mrs. Sparsit has long resented Bounderby’s marriage to the young Louisa,
as she hoped to marry him herself; so she is very pleased by Louisa’s apparent
indiscretion. Through the staircase, Dickens reveals the manipulative and
censorious side of Mrs. Sparsit’s character. He also suggests that Mrs. Sparsit’s
self-interest causes her to misinterpret the situation. Rather than ending up in a
pit of shame by having an affair with Harthouse, Louisa actually returns home to
her father.

Pegasus

Mr. Sleary’s circus entertainers stay at an inn called the Pegasus Arms. Inside this
inn is a “theatrical” pegasus, a model of a flying horse with “golden stars stuck on
all over him.” The pegasus represents a world of fantasy and beauty from which
the young Gradgrind children are excluded. While Mr. Gradgrind informs the pupils
at his school that wallpaper with horses on it is unrealistic simply because horses
do not in fact live on walls, the circus folk live in a world in which horses dance the
polka and flying horses can be imagined, even if they do not, in fact, exist. The
very name of the inn reveals the contrast between the imaginative and joyful world
of the circus and Mr. Gradgrind’s belief in the importance of fact.

Smoke Serpents

At a literal level, the streams of smoke that fill the skies above Coketown are the
effects of industrialization. However, these smoke serpents also represent the
moral blindness of factory owners like Bounderby. Because he is so concerned with
making as much profit as he possibly can, Bounderby interprets the serpents of

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smoke as a positive sign that the factories are producing goods and profit. Thus, he
not only fails to see the smoke as a form of unhealthy pollution, but he also fails to
recognize his own abuse of the Hands in his factories. The smoke becomes a moral
smoke screen that prevents him from noticing his workers’ miserable poverty.
Through its associations with evil, the word “serpents” evokes the moral obscurity
that the smoke creates.

Fire

When Louisa is first introduced, in Chapter 3 of Book the First, the narrator
explains that inside her is a “fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination
keeping life in itself somehow.” This description suggests that although Louisa
seems coldly rational, she has not succumbed entirely to her father’s prohibition
against wondering and imagining. Her inner fire symbolizes the warmth created by
her secret fancies in her otherwise lonely, mechanized existence. Consequently, it
is significant that Louisa often gazes into the fireplace when she is alone, as if she
sees things in the flames that others—like her rigid father and brother—cannot
see. However, there is another kind of inner fire in Hard Times—the fires that
keep the factories running, providing heat and power for the machines. Fire is thus
both a destructive and a life-giving force. Even Louisa’s inner fire, her imaginative
tendencies, eventually becomes destructive: her repressed emotions eventually
begin to burn “within her like an unwholesome fire.” Through this symbol, Dickens
evokes the importance of imagination as a force that can counteract the
mechanization of human nature.

Irony and satire in Hard Times

Charles Dickens' Hard Times depicts a picture of Victorian times in which

there was an alarming contrast between the owners and workers of industries,
among whom the workers were at hard times because of labour-exploitation.
Dickens uses irony and satire to show Victorian society's hypocrisy, avarice,
utilitarianism, labour exploitation by industries. Dickens' irony lies in his portrayal
of some characters such as Mr. Bounderby, Mrs. Sparsit, James Harthouse, Tom

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Gradgrind whose appearance and reality contrast. On the other hand, Dickens
satires against Victorian society's values on fact guided education, utilitarianism,
capitalism, industrialism or against Victorian morality and hypocrisy.

Dickens wants to expose mainly Victorian society's hypocrisy though the

use of irony. Mr. Bounderby claims to be a self-made person. He has tabulated a
story of his own success. He says that he was born and abandoned in a ditch by his
mother. He was raised by his alcoholic grandmother but in reality he had become
rich by disowning his mother. His mother hadn't abandoned him rather he had
abandoned her. In this way, the irony lies in the contrast between his appearance
and reality. Likewise, Mrs. Sparsit is the housekeeper to Mr. Bounderby. Though
she appears to be in the service of Mr. Bounderby, she always wants to be his wife
by breaking the relationship between Mr. Bounderby and Louisa. She also contrasts
in her appearance and reality. Another character James Harthouse is also a
hypocrite. He seems good, gentle, civilized, educated aristocrat but he secretly
plans to seduce Louisa. In Harthouse also irony can be found as he shows
difference between his appearance and reality. Finally, Tom Gradgrind is also ironic
character. He is the manager of Mr. Bounderby's bank. He is supposed to manage
the bank. But he robs the bank. Although in appearance he is the prestigious
manager, in reality he is the robber of the bank. Thus, irony is evident in his dualist
character.

Dickens aims the novel to satire mainly against Victorian society's

hypocrisy, avarice, fact-guided education, utilitarianism, labour exploitation.
Through dualistic characters of Mr. Bounderby, James Harthouse, Mrs. Sparsit,
Tom Gradgrind, Dickens wants to show Victorian people's hypocrisy. And obviously
Dickens aims at satirizing such dualistic character of people. More importantly he
satires against fact-guided education which produced a robber like Tom, a
disastrous character like Lousia. The very advocate of fact Mr. Gradgrind suffers
the consequences of his own philosophy of fact and utility and at last adopts fancy.
Although industrialism and capitalism promised labourer's betterment, it actually
turned out to be exploiter of the laborers like Stephen Blackpool. Obviously by
showing cruel and avaricious Bounderby and poor Blackpool, Dickens wants to satire
against industrialism and capitalism.

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SIGNIFICANCE OF TITLE: CHARLES DICKENS’ HARD

TIMES

HARD TIMES was serialized in Dickens’ magazine HOUSEHOLD WORDS in the

winter of 1853 -54. Before the publication of the novel, Dickens took great pain
with the title of the book. He experimented with as many as 24 titles Like '
According cooker the grindstone ' ' something tangible ' ' Rust and Dust’, ‘Hard
Heads and Soft Hearts’ etc. Later on those whittled down to just four : ' Two and
Two are Four ' ,‘A matter of calculation’ , ' The Gradgrind philosophy ' and
‘stubborn things’ of these the first three admittedly pointed to the utilitarian
apotheosis of facts , figures and averages . The last one however, indicates the
unbeatable nature of fancy and imagination. But these titles too were left out in
favour of the present one - Hard Times. Understandably Dickens intention is not,
to figure at the irrational reverence for fact in Victorian society but to outline the
dystopia to which this leads. The present title implies that the novel's principal
thematic preoccupation is the hard times which Dickens argues are the logical
backlash of fact ' -- worship to the total neglect of tender human impulses.

Dickens powerfully demonstrates the crisis that the educational institutions of

this time had faced owing to madding fact - orientation. He has satirized the
theories of political economists through exaggerated characters such as Mr.
Bounderby, the self-made man motivated by greed, and Mr. Gradgrind, the
schoolmaster who emphasizes facts and figures over all else. Encouraged by the
Benthamite fact - craze the educationists took pains to reduce everything to
statistical and measurable data. In an important chapter Tom and Louisa are
admonished for peeping into circus show which amounts to inculcation of fancy.
Mrs. Gradgrind takes them to task for their misdemeanour and instructs them to
be something logical. Promotion of this fact stuff, fancy - starved curriculum is
sowing a poison seed. It is difficult to overlook the ironic evocation of different
‘metaphors of growth and cultivation, plant nothing else and root out everything
else’, Out Fact for it alone is susceptible to proof and demonstration ". The
inevitable result of this malnutrition of fancy is that Gradgrind is hoisted with his
own petard. The ironic implication of the titles of the three books of the novel -

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sowing, Reaping and garnering is therefore hard to be ignored. Gradgrind is a fool

to sow the wind only to reap the whirlwind. He has indeed a very hard time when he
finds Louisa utterly ruined. Tom changed into a ' bored whelp ' and Bitzar, the
pride of his school, disowning gratitude simply because his schooling was paid for ',
it was a -- bargain ".

The title is apt and significant in so far as it hints at the industrial crisis too.
Dickens ' thesis is that the hard times are man - made. In an industrialized town
like Coketown , it is the inhumanity of industrialists like Bounderby who is culpable
for the sorry scheme of things . In this trying time of civilization every worker is
just a ' hand ', a soulless subhuman creature to whom even smoke is healthy.
Bounderby has not the slightest regard for ' humbugging sentiments ' of his
workers whom he equates with machines:

“So many Hundred Hands in this mill, so

Many horse - o steam power:"

Dickens' points is that' the 19th century business ethos laissez faire proposed and
practiced by the utilitarian economies spawned a nightmarish time of the
civilization. So hard was the time that in the ' impassable world ' of Bounderby
everything was fact between the lying in hospital and the cemetery '. No wonder
that Bounder by makes love to Louisa in the form of bracelets and the hours of his
cold, superannuated romance are perfectly punctual " The deadly statistical
recorder in the Gradgrind observatory knocked every second on the head as it was
boon and buried it with his accustomed regularity. " Gradgrind by the imperfect
utility calculus man ceases to be a man. This accounts for the ‘rugged individualism
' of Boundary - The Bully of Humanity who has pensioned off his mother Mrs.
Peglar on 30 pounds a year on condition that ' she should never tell others how
affectionately she reared up her dear Jorish and let him aggressively make a
virtue of low parentage.

The title has a bearing of many. The details indicate that humanity is jawing
through a very edificial face. Sissy's father has some how fallen on hard times for
his performance is no longer flawless. He has lately seen missing tips, falling short

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in his tips and found bad in his tumbling. Stephen Blackpool has also his hard times.
He is a persecuted husband who cannot divorce his wife given to drink and vile life
style. The word and time look inimical to all his innocent wages. The muddled
situation he is bogged down in is one of unrelieved gloom. There is the cruel and
blind criminal law to punish him if he hurts his wife or flees from her - or
marriages his ' good angel ' Rachael or simply lives with her with out marriage in
case the divorce is not granted. Stephen can only burst out in anger:

“This a muddle. It is just a muddle a ' together and the sooner I am dead the
better '.

Thus the present title of the novel is highly appropriate, for the novel not merely
diagnosis the causes of educational and socio-economic crisis, but somberly draws
the dismally bleak hard times which are but an out come of them.

Characterization in Hard Times

Introduction

In Hard Times, Dickens placed villains, heroes, heroines, and bystanders who are
representative of his times. Even though many of these characters have names
which indicate their personalities or philosophies, they are not caricatures but
people endowed with both good and bad human qualities. Shaped by both internal
and external forces, they are like Shakespeare's characters — living, breathing
beings who love, hate, sin, and repent. True to the class or caste system of
nineteenth-century England, Dickens drew them from four groups: the fading
aristocracy, the vulgar rising middle class, the downtrodden but struggling labor
class, and the itinerant group, represented by the circus people.

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Major Characters

Representative of the fading aristocracy are Mrs. Sparsit and James Harthouse.

Mrs. Sparsit, a pathetic, but scheming old lady, earns her living by pouring tea and
attending to the other housekeeping duties for Mr. Josiah Bounderby, whom she
despises. Sparing with words, she is literally a "sitter," first in Bounderby's home
and later in his bank. She lends her respectability and culture to his crude,
uneducated environment. Resentful of Bounderby and others who do not have the
background that she has, she seemingly accepts Bounderby's philosophy of life. In
direct discourse with him, she simpers and hedges; when he is not present, she
scorns him and spits on his picture. Throughout the novel, Mrs. Sparsit connives
and plans for her own advantage. Her role in the first book is one of waiting and
watching; in the second book, she continues this role and enlists the aid of Bitzer,
an aspirant to the middle class, to bring revenge upon Bounderby; in the last book,
she serves as informer and is rewarded by losing her position with Bounderby and
by being compelled to live with a hated relative, Lady Scadgers.

James Harthouse, the second face of the aristocracy, is a young man who comes to
Coketown because he is bored with life. He is employed to advance the interests of
a political party. When introduced to Louisa, he becomes infatuated with her and
seeks to arouse her love. Taking advantage of Bounderby's absences from home, he
goes to see Louisa on various pretexts. When Louisa refuses to elope with him, he
leaves Coketown for a foreign country. The only hurt he has received is a blow to
his ego or vanity.

Characters of the middle class take many faces: the wealthy factory owner, the
retired merchant who is a champion of facts, the "whelp," and the beautiful Louisa
nurtured in facts. Just as the buildings of Coketown are all alike in shape, so are
these people alike.

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Josiah Bounderby, the wealthy middle-aged factory owner of Coketown, is a self-

made man. Fabricating a story of his childhood, he has built himself a legend of the
abandoned waif who has risen from the gutter to his present position. To add to
his "self-made" station in life, this blustering, bragging bounder has told the story
of his miserable childhood so long and so loud that he believes it himself. The story
is simple: he says that after being abandoned by his mother, he was reared by a
drunken grandmother, who took his shoes to buy liquor; he relates often and long
how he was on his own as a mere child of seven and how he educated himself in the
streets. In the final book, when his story is proved false by the appearance of his
mother, who had not abandoned him but who had reared and educated him, he is
revealed as a fraud who had, in reality, rejected his own mother. With this
revelation and other events came his downfall and eventual death.

An opinionated man, he regards the workers in his factories as "Hands," for they
are only that — not people to him. The only truth to him is his own version of truth.

In the first book, as a friend of Thomas Gradgrind, he is intent upon having Louisa,
Gradgrind's older daughter, for his wife. In the conclusion of book one he succeeds
— by taking Gradgrind's son into the bank — in marrying Louisa, who does not love
him, for she has never been taught to love or dream, only to learn facts. True to
braggart nature, Bounderby expands the story of his miserable rise to wealth by
letting everyone know that he has married the daughter of a wealthy, respectable
man.

Book two reveals him more fully as the bounder; however, he is a blind bounder —
he does not know that his young wife has found a younger man to whom she is
attracted. In the final book, when she leaves him and returns home, his ego cannot
stand the blow. He does not change, even though almost everyone and everything
around him changes.

Gradgrind is the father of five children whom he has reared to learn facts and to
believe only in statistics. His wife, a semi-invalid, is simple-minded; although she

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does not understand his philosophy, she tries to do his bidding. As the book
progresses, however, he begins to doubt his own teachings. Mr. Thomas Gradgrind
represents the Utilitarian philosophy of the nineteenth century.

In the first book, he takes into his home a young girl whose father, a circus clown,
has abandoned her. He undertakes her education but fails since she is the product
of another environment. In this book, he presents Bounderby's suit for marriage to
Louisa and is pleased when she recognizes that wealth is important.

In the second book, Gradgrind emerges as a father for the first time. He takes
Louisa back into his home after she leaves Bounderby. Having lived with the
foundling in his home, he has come to recognize that there are emotions such as
love and compassion. When his daughter comes to him as a daughter looking for
help and sanction, he reacts as a father.

In the last book, Gradgrind abandons his philosophy of facts again to help Tom, his
wayward son, to flee from England so that he will not be imprisoned for theft.
Gradgrind also vows to clear the name of an accused worker. Here he learns —
much to his regret — that Bitzer, one of his former students, has learned his
lesson well; Bitzer refuses to help young Tom escape.

Tom Gradgrind, the son, is also a face of the middle class. Having been reared
never to wonder, never to doubt facts, and never to entertain any vice or fancy, he
rebels as a young man when he leaves his father's home, Stone Lodge, to work in
Bounderby's bank. He uses Bounderby's affection for Louisa to gain money for
gambling and drink. He urges Louisa to marry Bounderby since it will be to his own
benefit if she does.

Freed from the stringent rule of his father, Tom (whom Dickens has Harthouse
name "the whelp") becomes a "man about town." He begins to smoke, to drink, and
to gamble. When he becomes involved in gambling debts, he looks to Louisa for

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help. Finally she becomes weary of helping him and denies him further financial aid.
Desperate for money to replace what he has taken from the bank funds, Tom
stages a robbery and frames Stephen Blackpool. Just as he uses others, so is he
used by James Harthouse, who has designs on Louisa.

At the last, Tom shows his complete degeneration of character. When he realizes
that exposure is imminent, he runs away. The only redeeming feature of his
character is that he truly loves his sister and ultimately regrets that he has
brought her heartache. Escaping from England, he lives and dies a lonely life as an
exile. In his last illness, he writes to his sister asking her forgiveness and love.

Louisa Gradgrind Bounderby, a beautiful girl nurtured in the school of facts, reacts
and performs in a manner in keeping with her training until she faces a situation
for which her education has left her unprepared. A dutiful daughter, she obeys her
father in all things — even to contracting a loveless marriage with Bounderby, a
man twice her age. The only emotion that fills her barren life is her love for Tom,
her younger brother. Still young when she realizes that her father's system of
education has failed her, she begins to discover the warmth and compassion of life.
Only after her emotional conflict with Harthouse does she start her complete re-
education.

Dickens employs biblical parallels to portray the characters of the struggling

working class. Stephen Blackpool, an honest, hard-working power-loom weaver in
Bounderby's factory and the first victim to the labor cause, is likened unto the
biblical Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Just as the biblical Stephen was
stoned by his own people, so is Stephen Blackpool shunned and despised by his own
class. Even though he realizes that Bounderby and the other factory owners are
abusing the workers and that something must be done to help them, he refuses to
join the union. He is perceptive enough to know that Slackbridge, the trade-union
agitator, is a false prophet to the people.

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Married to a woman who had left him years before the story opens, Stephen finds
himself hopelessly in love with Rachael, also a worker in the factory. Rachael is
likened unto the long-suffering woman of the same name in biblical history.
Stephen cannot marry his beloved because the laws of England are for the rich,
not the penniless workman. When he goes to Bounderby for help to obtain a divorce
from his drunken, degenerate wife, he is scorned and bullied until he speaks up,
denying Bounderby's taunts. On another occasion he defends the workers against
Bounderby's scathing remarks; consequently, he is fired and has to seek a job in
another town. When Stephen learns that he is accused of theft, he starts back to
Coketown to clear his name; however, he does not arrive there. He falls into an
abandoned mine pit and is found and rescued minutes before his death. Although
he is just one of the "Hands" to Bounderby and others of the middle class, Stephen
Blackpool is a very sensitive, religious man who bears no enmity toward those who
have hurt him.

The last social group that Dickens pictures is best represented by Cecilia "Sissy"
Jupe, who is the antithesis of the scholars of Gradgrind's school. This group, the
circus people whose endeavor is to make people happy, is scorned by the
Gradgrinds and the Bounderbys of the world. Sissy, forsaken by her father, who
believed that she would have a better life away from the circus, is a warm, loving
individual who brings warmth and understanding to the Gradgrind home. Because of
her influence, the younger girl, Jane Gradgrind, grows up to know love, to dream,
and to wonder. In the conclusion of the book, Sissy can look forward to a life
blessed by a husband and children. The handwriting on the wall foretells her
happiness and Louisa's unhappiness.

Minor Characters

Dickens used the minor characters for comic relief, for transition of plot, and for
comparison and contrast.

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Bitzer is a well-crammed student in Gradgrind's model school of Fact. He is the

living contrast to the humble, loving, compassionate Sissy. Bitzer can best be
characterized as the symbolic embodiment of the practical Gradgrindian
philosophy: he is colorless, servile, mean; and he lives by self-interest.

Mr. M'Choakumchild, a teacher in Gradgrind's model school, is an advocate of the

Gradgrind system. Dickens says that he might have been a better teacher had he
known less.

Slackbridge, symbolized as the false prophet to the laboring class, is the trade-
union agitator.

Mrs. Pegler is the mysterious woman who shows great interest in Mr. Bounderby.
One meets her, usually, standing outside the Bounderby house, watching quietly.

Adam Smith Gradgrind and Malthus Gradgrind are Thomas Gradgrind's two
youngest sons. Their names are in keeping with the economic concern of the book.

Members of the Sleary Circus, in addition to Mr. Sleary, are Emma Gordon,
Kidderminster, who plays the role of cupid; Mr. E. W. B. Childers, and Josephine
Sleary.

Unnamed characters are members of the "Hands" and the sick wife of Stephen
Blackpool.

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Short Questions and Answers

1. Chapter 1 is entitled “The One Thing Needful.” What is that one thing?

Answer

1. “Facts” are the one thing needful, at least as far as Gradgrind and his
associates are concerned. The phrase is meant to suggest the reductiveness
of Gradgrind’s philosophy.

Chapter 3 to 4 Book 1

Study Questions

1. Gradgrind is “virtually retired” from what occupation?

2. How does Stone Lodge, Gradgrind’s house, resemble its owner?

3. Who is often referred to as “eminently practical”?

4. Which character describes himself as “a young vagabond”?

5. Who says, “Go and be somethingological directly.”?

6. Signor Jupe, Sissy Jupe’s father, performs in the circus with what animal?

7. Mr. Gradgrind’s political ambitions include what?

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8. Who asked whom to come peep at the circus?

9. Why does Mr. Bounderby always “throw” on his hat?

10. What is Louisa’s reaction to Mr. Bounderby’s kiss?

Answers

1. Gradgrind has virtually retired from the “wholesale hardware trade.”

2. Stone Lodge resembles its owner in several ways. It is square, regular,

“balanced” (six windows on one side and six on the other). It is an “uncompromising
fact on the landscape.”

And its portico (covered porch with columns) looks like Gradgrind’s forehead.

3. Thomas Gradgrind is referred to as “eminently practical” by fellow Coketowners.

He refers to himself as “eminently practical.”

4. Mr. Bounderby, recounting his childhood and youth, calls himself a young
vagabond.

5. Mrs. Gradgrind is in the habit of saying this when she wants to dismiss the
children to their own pursuits. Dickens remarks that she is “not a scientific
character.”

6. Signor Jupe performs with a trained dog named Merrylegs.

7. Mr. Gradgrind wants to be elected to Parliament.

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8. Mr. Gradgrind assumes that Tom brought his sister to the circus; Louisa says
that it was she who asked him to go.

9. Mr. Bounderby “throws” on his hat as if to express that he is “a man who had
been far too busily employed in making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing
his hat.”

10. Louisa reacts with disgust; she is shown frantically trying to rub the spot on
her cheek that Bounderby had kissed with her handkerchief, “until it was burning
red.”

Book I, Chapters 5-6:

Study Questions

1. What does Coketown’s river run with?

2. Coketown’s buildings are made of what material?

3. What does Bitzer tell Gradgrind he was about to help Sissy with before she ran
away?

4. What is Sissy carrying when she is stopped by Gradgrind and Bounderby?

5. The picture behind the bar in the Pegasus’ Arms is of what animal?

6. Why did Signor Jupe enroll his daughter in Gradgrind’s school?

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7. What is a “cackler”?

8. The “Wild Horseman of the North American Prairies” refers to which of Sleary’s
performers?

9. Who is “the diminutive boy with an old face”?

10. What does Mr. Sleary declare he has never done yet in his life and doesn’t
intend to start?

Answers

1. The river in Coketown runs purple with dye.

2. The buildings in Coketown are red and black—red from the brick, black from the
soot of the factory chimneys.

3. Bitzer tells Gradgrind he was only trying to help Sissy with her definitions.

4. Sissy is carrying a jar of “nine oils” used by the circus performers to soothe
their muscles.

5. The picture in the bar shows a horse.

6. Signor Jupe enrolled Sissy in Gradgrind’s school because he “had always had it in
his head” to have her educated.

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7. A “cackler,” in the jargon of the circus, is a speaker.

8. Mr. Childers is billed as the “Wild Horseman of the North American Prairies.”

9. The diminutive boy with the old face is Mr. Childers’ son and stage partner,
Master Kidderminster.

10. Mr. Sleary declares that he has never yet injured one of his horses, and that
he has no intention of injuring any of their riders.

Book I, Chapter 7:

Study Questions

1. What is Mrs. Sparsit occupied in making for her employer?

2. How much does Mr. Bounderby pay yearly for Mrs. Sparsit’s services?

3. Where did the late Mr. Sparsit die, and of what?

4. What has to happen before Tom Gradgrind can start to work for Bounderby?

5. Who speaks “with a kind of social widowhood” upon her?

6. Who is said to have a “moral infection of clap-trap in him”?

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7. When does Mr. Gradgrind lower his voice?

8. What is the “oversight” Gradgrind mentions?

9. Which of Mrs. Sparsit’s facial features are most pronounced?

10. Who is to be “reclaimed and formed” and in what way?

Answers

1. Mrs. Sparsit is preparing Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast tea.

2. Mr. Bounderby gives Mrs. Sparsit 100 pounds a year.

3. Mr. Sparsit died from consuming too much brandy in Calais, France.

4. Tom must finish up his education before coming to work for Bounderby.

5. Mrs. Sparsit is said to speak with an air of “social widowhood.”

6. This phrase applies to Mr. Bounderby; Dickens is referring to the way strangers,
ordinarily modest, take to boasting about him.

7. Mr. Gradgrind lowers his voice when he talks to Louisa about her reading.

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8. Mr. Gradgrind is referring to Sissy’s failure to include Mrs. Sparsit in her

curtseying.

9. Mrs. Sparsit has a long “Coriolanian” (Roman) nose and “dense black eyebrows.”

10. Sissy Jupe is to be reclaimed and formed by the education she will receive at
Gradgrind’s.

Book I, Chapter 8:

Study Questions

1. What do you think Dickens means by the opening words of Chapter 8, “Let us
strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune”?

2. How many church denominations compete for the allegiance of Coketown’s

population?

3. Mr. Gradgrind is said to have “greatly tormented his mind” about what?

4. Who does Tom say hates him and all the family?

5. The “Jaundiced Jail” is Tom’s way of referring to what?

6. What does Louisa wish she had learned, so as to be able to “reconcile” Tom to
conditions at home?

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7. What will be Tom’s “revenge” when he goes off to work at Bounderby’s?

8. In what way does Tom propose to “smooth” and “manage” Bounderby?

9. What does Tom see in the fire?

10. Mrs. Gradgrind repeats which one of her favorite “cogent remarks” to her
children?

Answers

1. By the “key-note,” Dickens may mean his educational theme, and by the “tune”
how it works itself out in the story of Tom and Louisa Gradgrind. The “key-note”
might also refer to his evocation of Coketown.

2. There are 18 churches in Coketown.

3. Mr. Gradgrind worries greatly about what books people take out of Coketown’s
library.

4. Tom believes that Sissy Jupe hates him and all his family.

5. Tom calls Stone Lodge a “Jaundiced Jail.”

6. Louisa says she wished she knew how to play an instrument, or sing, or talk
amusingly, as other girls have been taught to do.

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7. Tom says he will enjoy himself, go out more, and “see something.”

8. Whenever Bounderby says anything he doesn’t like to hear, Tom will just mention
how his sister would be hurt, and how she expects him (Tom) to be treated gently.

9. Tom sees nothing in the fire, “except that it is a fire…and looks as stupid and
blank as everything else looks.”

10. Mrs. Gradgrind says she wishes she “had never had a family, and then you would
know what it was to do without me!” She says the same thing in Chapter 4.

Book I, Chapter 9:

Study Questions

1. Whispering the “awful word,” Sissy divulges that her father is a what?

2. What word always reminds Sissy of stutterings?

3. What “terrible communication” does Sissy make about her mother?

4. What does Sissy remember her father doing when she was “quite a baby”?

5. What is Sissy’s reply to Louisa’s question about where she lived with her father?

6. Which of the stories Sissy read her father did he seem particularly to enjoy?

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7. What was the object of Sissy’s father’s one outburst of anger?

8. Why does every letter that she sees in Mr. Gradgrind’s hand take Sissy’s breath
away and blind her eyes?

9. “That not unprecedented triumph of calculation which is usually at work on

number one” refers to which character?

10. Asked for the first principle of political economy, Sissy’s “absurd” answer is
what?

Answers

1. Sissy tells Louisa that her father is a clown (in the circus).

2. The word “statistics” always reminds Sissy of stutterings.

3. Sissy’s “terrible communication” is that her mother was a dancer.

4. Sissy remembers her father carrying her.

5. Sissy says she traveled about the country, never staying in one place.

6. Sissy’s father took particular delight in the Arabian Nights.

7. The object of Signor Jupe’s anger was his trained dog, Merrylegs.

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8. A letter in Gradgrind’s hand has this effect on her because she supposes it
might be either from her father, or from Mr. Sleary, giving news about her father.

9. The phrase refers to young Tom Gradgrind.

10. Sissy’s answer is that the first principle of political economy is “To do unto
others as I would that they should do unto me.”

Book I, Chapters 10-12:

Study Questions

1. Who are the “Hands” of Coketown?

2. Only in his expression does Blackpool resemble what set of men?

3. What do travelers by express train say about the spectacle of Coketown’s

factories at night?

4. How old is Rachael?

5. Why does the undertaker in Rachael’s neighborhood have a black ladder?

6. The “crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism” refers to what?

7. How does Mrs. Sparsit react when Blackpool says he has come to ask, “How I am
to be ridded o’ this woman?”

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8. How has the old woman traveled to Coketown?

9. How long has Blackpool worked in Gradgrind’s factory?

10. Why does Stephen again look for Rachael among the women leaving the
factory?

Answers

1. The “Hands” refers to the great majority of Coketown’s population, those who
work in its factories.

2. Blackpool’s face looks intelligent, but he is not one of those workers who,
“piecing together their broken intervals of leisure through many years, had
mastered difficult sciences.”

3. The travelers say the factories look, lit up as they are at night, like “Fairy
palaces.”

4. Rachael is 35.

5. The undertaker has a black ladder “in order that those who had done their daily
groping up and down the narrow stairs might slide out of this working world by the
windows.”

6. The words refer to Blackpool’s power loom. Dickens was aware of the hazards to
life and limb presented by such machinery, and his journal, Household Words, ran
articles deploring the safety records in England’s factories.

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7. Mrs. Sparsit reacts as if she has received a “moral shock.”

8. The old woman has traveled to Coketown from the countryside via the
“Parliamentary,” at a penny a mile the cheapest way to travel by train. England’s
Parliament had decreed that one such train should run once every day, on all the
important lines.

9. Blackpool, as he tells the old woman, has worked in Bounderby’s factory for 12
years; he has worked as a weaver most of his life.

10. Blackpool wants to communicate the news of his wife’s reappearance to Rachael.

Book I, Chapter 13:

Study Questions

1. What object makes Stephen compare Rachael to the stars?

2. What item of Rachael’s clothing does Stephen kiss?

3. How many times does he kiss it?

4. What does Rachael break on the hearth?

5. Whose little sister is imagined to be among the angels?

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6. The red finger marks on Rachael’s forehead are from what?

7. Who is the woman Stephen stands beside in church, in the “imaginary happiness”
of his dream?

8. Which of the Ten Commandments would it seem Stephen sees and hears in his
dream?

9. What time is it when Stephen and Rachael both wake?

10. During the whole of this chapter, what is happening outside Stephen’s room?

Answers

1. The candle in his window makes Stephen compare her to the stars. His idea is
that Rachael sheds her light down on the ordinary circumstances of his life as the
“shining” faraway stars do the “heavy” candle, with its low light.

2. Stephen kisses the fringes of Rachael’s shawl.

3. He kisses her shawl twice.

4. After emptying it, Rachael breaks the bottle marked “Poison” on the hearth.

5. Rachael speaks of a younger sister who died. In his final speech to her, Stephen
speaks of how they will one day “walk together far awa’, beyond the deep gulf, in
th’ country where thy little sister is.”

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6. The marks on Rachael’s face are from the blow Stephen’s wife gives her when
Rachael takes away the mug.

7. The woman he dreams he is marrying is neither his wife nor Rachael but another
woman “on whom his heart had long been set.”

8. The two likeliest possibilities are either the “Thou shalt not kill,” or the “Thou
shalt not commit adultery,” or both at once.

9. It is three in the morning when Rachael and Stephen awaken.

10. All night a storm blows and rain falls outside of Stephen’s room.

Book I, Chapter 16:

Study Questions

1. The “deadly statistical recorder” in Gradgrind’s study refers to what?

2. When is Louisa, for the first time, a little shaken in the reserved composure she
adopts on her wedding day?

3. What does Mrs. Sparsit prefer that Mr. Bounderby call the “terms” (salary) of
her employment?

4. What sort of factual knowledge do the wedding guests bring to the Gradgrind-
Bounderby wedding feast?

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5. Mrs. Sparsit says she has long been under the necessity of “eating the bread of
dependence”; what in fact is her favorite supper dish?

6. What precaution does Mr. Bounderby take before communicating to Mrs. Sparsit
the news of his upcoming marriage?

7. What horrific image does Mrs. Sparsit’s operation with a scissors on a piece of
cambric suggest to Dickens?

8. Where are Louisa and Bounderby going on their honeymoon, and what does
Bounderby look forward to finding out when they get there?

9. Mrs. Sparsit accepts her new position at the bank, after assuring herself of
what one thing?

10. Louisa and Bounderby are married in a church with what distinctive
architectural feature?

Answers

1. The phrase, part of another extended metaphor, refers to Gradgrind’s clock.

2. Louisa’s assumed composure is shaken when her brother embraces her at the
bottom of the stairs.

3. Mrs. Sparsit prefers the phrase “annual compliment.”

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4. The guests know what everything they eat and drink is made of, how it was
imported or exported, and so forth.

5. Mrs. Sparsit’s favorite supper dish is sweetbreads (veal pancreas) in a “savory

brown sauce.”

6. Mr. Bounderby stops by a chemist’s (pharmacy) to pick up a bottle of smelling

salts before his conversation with Mrs. Sparsit.

7. Mrs. Sparsit at work picking out holes with a scissors on a piece of cambric
suggests the image of a “hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird.”

8. The Bounderbys are traveling to Lyons, in France; Mr. Bounderby wants to look
into how the French “hands” are treated, and whether they too “required to be fed
with gold spoons.”

9. Mrs. Sparsit wishes to make sure that in accepting this new position she is not
further descending the social scale (from personal housekeeper).

10. The church in which Louisa and Bounderby are married has “florid wooden legs.”

Book II, Chapters 1-3:

Study Questions

1. Why does Dickens declare that Coketown’s very existence is a wonder?

2. What “fiction of Coketown” takes the form of a threat?

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3. The Fairy Palaces, on hot days, have the atmosphere of a what?

4. After office hours in Bounderby’s bank, what room does Mrs. Sparsit like to sit
in?

5. What does Mrs. Sparsit like to think of herself as, and what do people passing
by Bounderby’s bank think of her as?

6. Bitzer shows himself to be an “excellent young economist” in what remarkable

instance?

7. Why does Mrs. Sparsit exclaim, “O you fool!” to herself, after Harthouse has
left the bank?

8. In the sentences “They liked fine gentlemen; they pretended that they did not,
but they did. They became exhausted in imitation of them…” who is meant by
“they”?

9. What does Bounderby tell Harthouse of Coketown’s smoke?

10. Before the family dinner, what does Bounderby propose that he and Harthouse
do?

Answers

1. Dickens speaks of Coketown in this manner because its leading manufacturers

are always claiming to be “ruined.”

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2. This fiction of Coketown is the manufacturers’ talk, whenever they feel their
profits are being interfered with, of throwing all their property into the Atlantic.

3. The Fairy Palaces, or factories, have on hot days the atmosphere of a simoon (a
desert wind).

4. The room Mrs. Sparsit likes at that hour is a managerial boardroom.

5. Mrs. Sparsit likes to think of herself as the Bank Fairy; passersby see her as
the Bank Dragon.

6. Bitzer’s excellence as an economist lies in his having consigned his own mother to
a workhouse.

7. She is most likely referring either to her employer or to Louisa; to Bounderby,

because she senses how unattractive he will seem next to a man like Harthouse; to
Louisa, because Mrs. Sparsit assumes she will prove dangerously susceptible to
Harthouse’s charms.

8. The “they” referred to are the adherents of Gradgrind’s philosophy.

9. Bounderby assures Harthouse that the smoke from Coke¬town’s chimneys is “the
healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs.”

10. Bounderby proposes to take Harthouse on a “round of visits to the voting and
interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity.”

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Book II, Chapters 4-5:

Study Questions

1. What does Dickens find notably lacking in the meeting of the Coketown workers?

2. The man who, in Slackbridge’s speech, “deserts his post, and sells his flag,”
refers to whom?

3. A “strong voice” in the meeting hall calls for what?

4. Blackpool makes no complaint about being made into an outcast but asks that he
be allowed just one thing. What thing is that?

5. Who during the meeting feels “more sorry than indignant” toward Blackpool?

6. What does Slackbridge, acting like “fugleman” (a drill sergeant) call for as soon
as Stephen leaves the meeting hall?

7. What are Mr. Bounderby’s first words to Stephen, and why do they fall “rudely
and discordantly” on his ears?

8. About what does Stephen say he is as sorry as Bounderby?

9. How does Stephen manage to most exasperate Bounderby?

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10. Why does Stephen object to Bounderby’s talk of imprisoning Slackbridge and
other leaders like him?

Answers

1. Dickens points out that the audience betrays no sign of “carelessness, no languor,
no idle curiosity.”

2. Slackbridge uses these words to refer to Stephen Blackpool.

3. The strong voice demands that if Blackpool is present he be heard from.

4. Stephen asks that he be allowed to remain working.

5. Most of the audience feels this way toward Stephen.

6. Slackbridge calls for “three cheers” for the union after Stephen leaves the hall.

7. Bounderby’s first words to Stephen are to “speak up”; they fall rudely and
discordantly on his ears because they “seemed to assume that he really was the
self-interested deserter that he had been called.”

8. Stephen says he is as sorry as Bounderby is when the people’s leaders are bad.

9. Without being conscious of it, Bounderby is particularly exasperated that

Stephen addresses all his words to Louisa.

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10. Stephen thinks that the trouble does not lie with the leaders and thus will not
be removed even if they are.

Book II, Chapters 7-8:

Study Questions

1. According to Mr. Harthouse, what is the only difference between the “hard Fact
fellows” and their opponents, the “philanthropists” and “professors of virtue”?

2. What does Mr. Harthouse write to his brother soon after his arrival in
Coketown?

3. What does Mr. Bounderby say were the only pictures in his possession as a
youth?

4. Who is the previous owner of Bounderby’s summer house?

5. In the course of their conversation in the forest clearing, Louisa confides to

Harthouse that she has been doing what for her brother, Tom?

6. What is Tom doing as he walks through the trees on Bounderby’s estate, not
knowing that Harthouse and his sister are observing him?

7. According to Mr. Bounderby, what does Louisa do when she hears the news of
the robbery?

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8. In discussing who the perpetrators of the bank robbery might be, which of the
many “fictions of Coketown” does Mr. Bounderby give voice to?

9. What remains Mrs. Sparsit’s “greatest point, first and last”?

10. What does Louisa say she wants to know, when she goes to her brother’s room?

Answers

1. Harthouse says the only difference between them is that while the advocates of
the hard Fact school and their opponents both know that humanitarianism is
“meaningless,” their opponents will never say so.

2. Mr. Harthouse writes that the “Bounderbys were ‘great fun’;…that the female
Bounderby…was young and remarkably pretty.”

3. In his youth, the only pictures Bounderby ever owned were engravings on the
labels for bottles of shoe polish.

4. The previous owner of Bounderby’s summer house, one Nickits, is a Coketown

industrialist who went bankrupt.

5. Louisa tells Harthouse she has been giving Tom sums of money to cover his
gambling debts.

6. Tom is idly beating the branches and scratching the moss off of the trees with
his cane.

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7. Mr. Bounderby reports to Harthouse that Louisa fainted—“dropped, Sir, as if

she was shot when I told her!”—when she hears about the robbery.

8. The “fiction of Coketown” that Bounderby repeats is “Show me a dissatisfied

Hand, and I’ll show you a man that’s fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it is.”

9. Mrs. Sparsit persists in making a great show of her pity for Mr. Bounderby.

10. Louisa asks Tom if there is some hidden truth that he has to tell her.

Book II, Chapter 9:

Study Questions

1. What is Mrs. Sparsit always smoothing?

2. “Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it” is said by what character, and
what does it mean?

3. The train to and from Bounderby’s country retreat passes over what kind of
countryside?

4. Why does Dickens speak of Bitzer as a “fit servitor” at death’s door?

5. What “idol” has presided grimly over Louisa’s childhood?

6. Where is Mr. Gradgrind while his wife lies dying?

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7. To whom has Louisa “never softened” since leaving home?

8. With what kind of feeling does Louisa go to see her mother?

9. With what “strange speech” does Mrs. Gradgrind answer her daughter’s question
as to whether she is in pain?

10. About what does Louisa experience a “rising feeling of resentment” as she
stands by her mother’s deathbed?

Answers

1. Mrs. Sparsit is always smoothing her mittens.

2. Mrs. Sparsit says this, addressing Mr. Bounderby’s portrait; she means,
presumably, that the imminent collapse of his marriage will serve him right.

3. The train passes over a “wild country of past and present coal-pits.”

4. The extreme pallor of Bitzer’s skin is here associated with death.

5. The idol of Reason has dominated Louisa’s childhood.

6. Mr. Gradgrind is “hard at it in the national dust-yard,” i.e., he is away attending

sessions of Parliament.

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7. Louisa has never softened to Sissy since leaving home.

8. Louisa goes to see her mother with “a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her.”

9. Mrs. Gradgrind answers that “I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room…but
I couldn’t positively say that I have got it.”

10. Louisa resents the influence of Sissy on her younger sister.

Book II, Chapters 10-12:

Study Questions

1. Since when does Mrs. Sparsit complain of her nerves?

2. How does Harthouse describe Blackpool’s speech before Bounderby?

3. From the “House of Commons to the House of Corrections,” observes Mr.

Harthouse, “there is a general profession of morality,” with, however, one
exception. Which one is that?

4. The expression the “national cinder-heap” refers to what?

5. What rather odd piece of advice does Mrs. Sparsit give her employer?

6. In his study at Stone Lodge, Gradgrind is at work, “proving something.” What

does Dickens suppose he is trying to prove?

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7. When he hears a particularly loud clap of thunder from the storm that has been
raging all night, Gradgrind glances toward where?

8. What significant gesture accompanies Louisa’s passionate speech to her father?

9. What does Louisa say it would have been better for her to be?

10. Why does Louisa say she was not “wholly indifferent” to the prospect of her
marriage to Bounderby?

Answers

1. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been in a delicate state ever since the robbery.

2. Mr. Harthouse contemptuously refers to Blackpool’s speech as “lengthy and

prosy in the extreme…in the humble-virtue style of eloquence.”

3. Mr. Harthouse says that the one exception to the professions of morality
coming from every side is to be found “among our people”; that is, the “hard fact
men,” Utilitarians and political economists like her father and his ally Bounderby.

4. “The national-cinder heap” is what Dickens calls Parliament meeting in session,

with its members looking for odds and ends in the dust and throwing quantities of
that same dust in each other’s eyes.

5. Mrs. Sparsit urges Mr. Bounderby to “Be buoyant, Sir!”

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6. Dickens has Mr. Gradgrind hard at work, proving that “the Good Samaritan was a
Bad Economist.”

7. Gradgrind glances toward Coketown, thinking that its tall chimneys might be in
danger from the lightning. (That there are living people abroad in the storm, among
them his daughter, does not enter his thoughts.)

8. Louisa beats her breasts with both hands.

9. Louisa says it would have been better to have been born stone blind than raised
as she has been by her father—at least then, forced to recognize the world’s
shape through touch, her imagination would have had some practice.

10. Louisa says she had hoped by marrying Bounderby to be “pleasant and useful” to
her brother, “the subject of all the little tenderness in my life.”

Book III, Chapters 1-2:

Study Questions

1. The title of Chapter 1 refers back to which other chapter title, and why?

2. At first Louisa has an impression that all the events of her life since leaving her
childhood room are like what?

3. What does Louisa allow her sister to do?

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4. What kind of look does Louisa’s father have on his face?

5. What does Gradgrind say about himself with special earnestness, and that
Dickens gives him credit for believing?

6. What is the belief that Mr. Gradgrind says he has never shared but that now he
must consider afresh?

7. Why does Harthouse keep ringing his bell all night for the hotel porter?

8. Where does Harthouse look for Louisa?

9. Why does Harthouse, telling himself that “it may be as well to be in training,”
order a steak dinner?

10. Of what does Harthouse admit to having taken advantage?

Answers

1. The title of Book 3, Chapter 1 refers to the novel’s first chapter, “The One
Thing Needful”; the facts that Mr. Gradgrind had there extolled as the one thing
needful will not serve now. The “other thing” may be the compassion that Louisa
receives from both her father and Sissy.

2. Louisa has the impression that since her wedding, the events of her life are as
the shadows of a dream.

3. Louisa allows her sister to hold her hand.

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4. Mr. Gradgrind carries a “jaded, anxious look upon him.”

5. Mr. Gradgrind insists that he has always meant well by his system.

6. The belief Mr. Gradgrind mentions is that “there is a ¬wisdom of the Heart, and
that there is a wisdom of the Head.”

7. He rings for the porter to find out if Louisa has left any messages for him.

8. He looks for her first at Bounderby’s country house and then at his bank, where
Tom cannot tell him her whereabouts.

9. Humorously anticipating a wrestling challenge from Mr. Bounderby, Mr.

Harthouse decides to eat some meat as a way to fortify himself for the encounter.

10. Mr. Harthouse tells Sissy that he took advantage of Louisa’s “father’s being a
machine…her brother’s being a whelp…her husband’s being a bear,” adding that in
doing so he “had no particularly evil intentions.”

Book III, Chapter 3:

Study Questions

1. What is it that Gradgrind is surprised Bounderby has missed?

2. Asked to speak, Mrs. Sparsit is reduced to what?

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3. What does Mr. Bounderby call Mr. Harthouse?

4. What does Gradgrind entreat Bounderby, for his own sake and for Louisa’s?

5. When Bounderby learns where Louisa is, he demands what from Mrs. Sparsit?

6. What does Mr. Bounderby advise his housekeeper to do when she returns to the
bank?

7. Bounderby takes offense at Gradgrind’s use of which common form of address?

8. According to Bounderby, what is the nature of the “incompatibility” between him

and his wife?

9. Why does Bounderby declare he is glad that Gradgrind says he is being

unreasonable?

10. What does Bounderby say he plans to tell anyone who asks him about his
decision to part from Louisa?

Answers

1. Mr. Gradgrind is surprised that Mr. Bounderby has missed his letter.

2. Mrs. Sparsit is reduced to facial contortions, gestures at her throat, and finally,
tears.

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3. Mr. Bounderby calls Mr. Harthouse Mr. Gradgrind’s “precious gentleman-friend.”

4. Mr. Gradgrind asks Mr. Bounderby not to shout.

5. Mr. Bounderby demands an apology from Mrs. Sparsit.

6. Mr. Bounderby advises Mrs. Sparsit to put her feet in a tub of hot water, drink
a glass of rum and butter, and go to bed.

7. Mr. Bounderby takes offense at Mr. Gradgrind’s addressing him as “my dear
Bounderby.”

8. The nature of the incompatibility between his wife and himself is simply that
she “don’t properly know her husband’s merits, and is not impressed with such a
sense as would become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance.”

9. Mr. Bounderby declares this because “when Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights,
tells me what I say is unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish
sensible.”

10. Mr. Bounderby says he plans to tell people that “the two horses wouldn’t pull
together.”

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Book III, Chapters 4-5:

Study Questions

1. Why does Mr. Bounderby think that, as a “commercial wonder,” he is more

admirable than Venus?

2. What sum is offered as reward for the arrest of Stephen Blackpool?

3. Why is the placard describing Blackpool being read aloud?

4. What resolution concerning Stephen Blackpool does Slackbridge propose?

5. What is young Tom doing while Bounderby pursues his investigations?

6. Why does Mrs. Sparsit cry out “It’s a coincidence! It’s a Providence!” when she
spots Rachael and Sissy outside of Bounderby’s house?

7. What “pension” has Bounderby supplied his mother with, in return for her
silence?

8. Why do Sissy, Rachael, and Mr. Gradgrind think the lifting of suspicions against
Mrs. Pegler bodes well for Stephen Blackpool?

9. Why has Tom been “plucked up” by a “forced spirit,” and why does it “thrive”
with him?

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10. What truly dark imagining do both Sissy and Louisa entertain of Tom?

Answers

1. Mr. Bounderby is more admirable than Venus because he arose from the mud (of
his poverty) and not, like the goddess, from the sea.

2. The award for the arrest of Stephen Blackpool is 20 pounds.

3. The placard is being read aloud to the workers who cannot read by their fellows
who can.

4. Slackbridge proposes in his resolution that “Stephen Blackpool…having been

already disowned by the community of Coketown, the same are free from the
shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his dishonest
actions!”

5. Tom moves about with Mr. Bounderby “like his shadow, assisting in all the
proceedings.”

6. Mrs. Sparsit knows that Rachael can positively identify the old lady in the coach
as the mysterious old woman.

7. Bounderby has supplied his mother with 30 pounds a year.

8. The three think this because the old woman and Stephen had always been
mentioned as associates; if she has nothing to do with the robbery, the chances
increase that neither did he.

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9. Tom has been “plucked up” by the nonappearance of Stephen Blackpool, and it
thrives as his absence continues.

10. They suspect the possibility that Tom may have had Stephen “put out of the
way” (killed), in order to permanently avert suspicion.

Book III, Chapter 6:

Study Questions

1. Why do Sissy and Rachael, as they walk together in the countryside, avoid
mounds of high grass?

2. Why do Sissy and Rachael not wish to look closely at Stephen’s hat?

3. How does Sissy get Rachael to stop screaming?

4. Who holds the watch that tells how long the men have been down the shaft?

5. What can “practiced eyes” tell about the action of the windlass the first time it
is brought up?

6. Which of the pitmen is the first to inform the crowd of Stephen’s condition?

7. What has broken Stephen’s fall?

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8. Where was Stephen headed to before he fell?

9. What is Stephen’s first utterance after he is delivered from the pit?

10. The litter on which he is being carried seems to Stephen to be moving in what
direction?

Answers

1. Sissy and Rachael avoid these mounds because of stories that old pits are
sometimes hidden under them.

2. The two women fear that the hat may be stained with blood, indicating that
Stephen had met with foul play.

3. Sissy keeps repeating “Think of Stephen, think of Stephen” until Rachael calms
down.

4. The surgeon announces how long the men have been down the shaft.

5. Mechanically-minded observers would know that the windlass was pulling in such
a way as to have only one passenger.

6. The pitman who makes the announcement is the “sobered” man whom Sissy
discovered asleep by the engine house.

7. Stephen has landed on a “mass of crumpled rubbish with which the pit was half
choked up…his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side.”

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8. Stephen was headed to Bounderby’s summer house, intending to clear himself of

the banker’s charges.

9. The first thing Stephen says is Rachael’s name.

10. Stephen has the impression that the litter bearers are moving in the direction
of the star that has shone down on him for so long as he lay in the shaft.

Book III, Chapter 7:

Study Questions

1. The title of Chapter 7, “Whelp-Hunting,” refers to whom?

2. What does Gradgrind do as soon as he returns home from seeing Stephen

Blackpool at the Old Hell Shaft?

3. What does Gradgrind tell Bounderby it is his duty to do?

4. At the outset of the family conference called by Gradgrind to discuss what to

do about his son, what does Louisa say to encourage her father?

5. “Ten thousand pounds could not effect it,” says Gradgrind. What is “it”?

6. Mr. Bounderby’s “bullying vein of public zeal” might lead him to do what?

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7. Where has Sleary’s Horse-Riding set up?

8. Who sells the tickets for the circus?

9. Bitzer’s long hard run has had what sort of singular effect on his appearance?

10. How does Mr. Sleary propose to get Tom to Liverpool?

Answers

1. The title “Whelp-Hunting” refers to Tom Gradgrind, first dubbed “the whelp” by
Harthouse in Book 2, Chapter 2 and often so called by Dickens; “whelp” is a word of
Anglo-Saxon origin meaning the young offspring of dogs or meat-eating wild animals
such as wolves or lions.

2. Gradgrind sends a message to Mr. Bounderby asking his son to come directly to
Stone Lodge.

3. Gradgrind tells his old former ally that he considers it his duty to vindicate
Stephen Blackpool’s memory and declare the real thief.

4. Louisa tells her father he still has three young children (meaning her sister Jane
and the two younger Gradgrind boys) who may be different from either Tom or
herself.

5. Gradgrind says it would take more than 10,000 pounds to find Tom and spirit him
out of the country in the short time remaining before he makes his son’s act
publicly known.

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6. Mr. Bounderby might insist that his young brother-in-law be brought to justice,
face a trial, and suffer punishment for his crime.

7. Sleary’s Horse-Riding has set up in the marketplace of a small town more than
20 miles away from the town to which Sissy had directed Tom.

8. Master Kidderminster is the ticket taker.

9. Bitzer has “run himself into a sort of white heat, when other people run
themselves into a glow.”

10. Mr. Sleary intends to get Tom into a coach that will meet the mail train to
Liverpool.

Book III, Chapters 8-9:

Study Questions

1. As he is confiding his plans to Sissy, what does Sleary call Bitzer?

2. What does Mr. Gradgrind say is his last chance to soften Bitzer?

3. The reappearance of Merrylegs immediately suggests what to Mr. Sleary?

4. What is it that Sleary says people can’t always be doing?

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5. According to Mr. Sleary, a promise from Gradgrind to do what will more than
balance his account with the circus?

6. How does Bounderby decide he can get the most glory out of his employment of
his housekeeper?

7. What does Mrs. Sparsit ask Mr. Bounderby not to do as he begins to speak to
her?

8. Mrs. Sparsit says the portrait of Mr. Bounderby has what advantage over the
original?

9. What is the size of Lady Scadgers’ establishment?

10. Louisa will be loved by all children, but by whose in particular?

Answers

1. Sleary calls Bitzer a “prethiouth rathcal” (precious rascal).

2. Mr. Gradgrind reminds Bitzer of the education he has received at his school.

3. When he sees Merrylegs, Mr. Sleary is sure that Sissy’s father has died.

4. People, says Sleary, cannot always be made to learn, or always made to work.

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5. Mr. Gradgrind will clear his debts to the circus by at some point in the future
ordering a “bespeak.”

6. Mr. Bounderby comes to the conclusion that firing Mrs. Sparsit will give him the
most glory.

7. Mrs. Sparsit asks Mr. Bounderby not to bite her nose off.

8. The portrait has the advantage over its original of not possessing the power to
speak, and “disgusting others.”

9. Lady Scadgers’ establishment is “a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two.”

10. Sissy’s children will love Louisa.

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