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Book beginning: page 1

Introduction

• The novel, although titled “Hard Times” and including several topics of hardship, is actually written with a lot of humour and does not depress the reader anymore than it amuses them.
• There is a lot of mention about religion in the novel, sometimes it seems as though everyone has lost faith, most likely as a consequence of living in such a heavily industrialised city. But at other moments, the characters’ faith seems quite alive, especially when talking of the afterlife.
• Life in general, especially for the lower-class who worked in the factories, could be summed up in a line Stephen says when talking about his wife: “From bad to worse, from worse to worsen” (p64).
• There is only one truly taboo subject in the story and that is divorce.

Character descriptions

• Mr. Gradgrind’s character was described as “not unkind, all things considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, if he had only made some round mistakes in the arithmetic that balanced it, years ago” (p24). This not only proves to be true by the end, but also shows that one is not limited to the decisions that they have made thus far in life. Although it states “years ago”, Mr. Gradgrind is no less capable of becoming “kind” from this point forward, bettering many lives because he has so many under his protection, than he was when forming himself as a young man.
• Unlike nearly all of the rest of the characters, Sleary was one of the few who remained exactly the same from beginning to end. When he first meets Mr. Gradgrind he says “people must be amuthed […] they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht” (p37), which is his exact same mind set when he says his farewells at the end (p262/3).
• As uneducated as Stephen is, he actually does show himself to be quite cleaver, especially with comments like: “’Tis not by them the trouble’s made, Sir. ‘Tis not wi’ them ‘t commences” (p135) when talking of the workers to Mr. Bounderby.
• Tom showed quickness in his intelligence, demonstrated when he came up with his bank robbery plan on the spot (p247), whereas his sister’s intelligence showed an understanding of the bigger picture of life. She showed this ability when she stared into the cinders realising life was so short (p48), and again when she parted with her brother saying he would find comfort in her words when he was gone and wished he had forgiven her (p256).

Facts, curiosity, and their consequences

• Mr. Gradgrind owned a school to help teach young people facts, to live what he considered a better way of life, and he was so dedicated to this that even when simply walking home he “looked for any child he knew by name, and might order off” (p10) who were in this case looking in on the circus.
• At the beginning Louisa was shown as a curious girl, being one of the children looking in on the circus (p11), and even said to “wonder” when her father had taught her not to (p43). It was only with age and seeing no point in pursuing a desire to learn more than facts that she actually gave up, and told her father that she had “been tired a long time […] of everything” (p11), which was a comment he simply dismissed as being childish.
  
  So when her father, some years later, says to her that he never knew she was unhappy (p194), it makes you wonder how he never picked up on all the times she showed an inclination to want more than facts.

• When Mr. Gradgrind finds his two eldest children looking in on the circus and asks what they are doing there, to which Louisa replies: “We wanted to see what it was like” (p11), shouldn’t he be somewhat happy that they are looking for facts even though it is on a subject he dislikes? Being able to define a horse is no more useful than being able to describe a circus, although bearing in mind, they were only speaking of horses in class because Sissy had been asked what her father did for work.
• Shortly after Louisa and Thomas have been discovered peeping into the circus and are then back at home, Mr. Gradgrind asks Mr. Bounderby “in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise?” and although responded with “in idle imagination” (p16), one thinks it may have come from what Sleary says that people must be amused, they can’t always be working or learning (p36/7). In general, curiosity arises in nature and inevitably it is going to appear, you may choose to live like these two men, but it is the exception and not the rule as a choice made after a childhood of experiences.
• When Mrs. Gradgrind is explaining how Sissy came to be enrolled, it turns out both Louisa and Tom had used their father’s logic against him because where he ordinarily would not have allowed her to attend due to her circus connections, Louisa and Tom played it another way, convincing their mother that “the girl wanted to come, and that Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it possible to contradict them when such was the fact!” (p17).
• Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. E. W. B. Childers from the circus, proclaims the following: “It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English or whether in French […] I am telling your friend what’s the fact” (p29), as we think of the use of fact constrained to the pompous middle or upper classes. But just because you do not live exclusively by facts, does not mean they must be exempt from life, and perhaps are shown here in a more happy medium?
• It would seem that the worst thing about living a factual life is that there is no way to relieve stress, especially difficult for Louisa to watch when her brother is feeling down and she “can’t talk to [him] as to lighten [his] mind, for [she] never sees any amusing sights or reads any amusing books that it would be a pleasure or a relief to [him] to talk about” (p45).
• Although the reader understands the strict sense that is meant by “facts alone are wanted” (p1), when Louisa describes what she saw in the ashes (“by looking at the red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. It made me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how little I could hope to do in it”) (p48), it does not seem to be so far fetched from her imagination that it warrents the response her mother gives her: “to hear you talking in this absurd way about sparks and ashes!”. Although ‘the ashes dying out’ is clearly a metaphor for life going by quickly, she is still deriving quite a literal meaning.
• A contradictory point in the story is found in the first chapter when Mr. Gradgrind goes into a whole speech as to why “Sissy” is not an acceptable name, and telling her that not even her own father has the right to call her it, but at that point Louisa is referred to by the nickname “Loo”.
• In the second book, it is revealed that now even Tom dreams in his sleep although given to uneasy images (p122), but it is still progress in comparison to his original inability to see anything at all that wasn’t factually before him (p47).
• When Louisa moves to the country home with Mr. Bounderby, she trades watching ashes for watching leaves (p152), either way, wherever she is, she is observing how short life is before death arrives.
• Upon accepting Mr. Bounderby’s proposal and Louisa’s sort of explanation of her decision, Mr. Gradgrind is pleased with his success in her teachings, but how does he not see through her rigid formality of words? If he were to look at the facts, throughout her life he has known her to: look in on the circus because she wanted to see what it was like (p11); befriend Sissy, tricking her mother into letting her come to her father’s school (p17); use the word “wonder” (p43); and even told him once of her being “tiered” (p11). Is this oversight due to him only considering facts that are of interest to him?

When facts come back to haunt you

• When Mr. Gradgrind finds out that his son has committed the theft he says “if a thunderbolt had fallen on me, it would have shocked me less” (p255), to which Tom replies “so many people are employed in situations of trust; so many people, out of so many, will be dishonest. I have heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How can I help laws? You have comforted others with such things, father. Comfort yourself!”
  
  This quote has a double edge, as it not only shows that advice is often easier to hand out than it is to take, especially when it is this uncomforting, but also, yet again, his life of facts have come back to haunt him. Between this incident and his recent discovery of Mr. Bounderby’s lies, it is no wonder that he willingly took on a newer, kinder way of life, distancing himself somewhat from his previous rigid regime.

Questionable decisions

• When Mr. Gradgrind is trying to persuade Louisa to marry Mr. Bounderby, he says upon parting from her: “I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its time” (p88). This makes one wonder if Louisa had thought her decision through properly, as her mother was clearly far from happy in her marriage and the comparison does not deter her away from saying yes.
• Marriage was without a doubt the element to ruin Mrs. Gradgrind’s health, shown in the following line said to Louisa: “If your head begins to split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you are to be envied” (p91). The oddest thing about this is that Louisa had still not reconsidered her decision to marry Mr. Bounderby, when this was the advice her mother could provide for her after having been in the same situation. Does this perhaps show Louisa’s lack of trust in her mother, as she is not thought to be as intellectually sound in judgement as her father?
• This novel teaches that someone cannot do things for the sake of someone else, most notably seen in Sissy’s character who says “although I am so anxious to learn, because [my poor father] wished me to, I am afraid I don’t like it” (p51). And even though Mrs. Gradgrind talks of how Sissy “so perseveringly asks, over and over again, about her tiresome letters!” (p56) and Mr. Gradgrind later admits that she tried her best (p81), Sissy is never able to achieve this goal as it does not come from her own wishes.
• One has to wonder why Mr. Bounderby ever asked Mrs. Sparsit to leave, as he most likely knew that Louisa would never fulfil the role of a loving housewife.

Mr. Bounderby

• No one, neither child nor adult, was supposed to invent any type of story that would tempt one to wonder or fancy, but Mr. Bounderby, the harshest one of all, not only made up his entire life story and then refused to give any explanations when found out, but was actually the only one to have remained with such a strict profession of fact until the day he died.
• Mr. Bounderby’s fabricated life story obviously required some lies, but other information was taken from his actual childhood (his mother did own a shop which he stated on p14, and she confirmed on p234), and any remaining gaps seem as though they were filled in with what he was like at the moment of telling his story, such as when he said: “I have been a determined character in later life, and I suppose I was then” (p13). Of course, this could have been true, but it does seem as if he is filling in blanks in the least creative way possible.
• Can we perhaps tell the difference between what is fact or fiction in Mr. Bounderby’s stories with details such as: Mr. Bounderby “always threw [his hat] on, as expressing a man who had been far too busily employed in making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his hat” (p18). He clearly did this in order to convey a desired persona, not because he actually lacked time to learn how to put on a hat in an orderly manner.
• Mr. Bounderby makes a comment about how valuable time is when meeting with the circus folk (p26), but later on when Stephen goes to ask for help and is first admitted into his presence, Mr. Bounderby tries to guess why he is there. He waffles on about how his hired Hands often want more than they are offered and then rushes him to speak no less than five times before actually allowing him to start (p63). Why did he try to answer his own question as to why Stephen had come, would this not be considered a colossal waste of time according to his views?
• One of the very few times we see Mr. Bounderby have an actual ordinary life problem was when he had to tell Mrs. Sparsit of his up coming marriage to Louisa. It was interesting to see how he dealt with it, as he went quite overboard with his expectations (book I, chapter XVI).
• As much as Mr. Bounderby is all about facts, he does not necessarily take comments at face value, but rather reads into them insisting “I know what you said; more than that, I know what you mean” (p131).
• Mr. Bounderby seems to think he is above and beyond what is required of him by society and home, which is witnessed in his separation from Louisa. Not only is there clear hypocrisy between the way he separates from his wife and the reminder he gave Stephen that he had taken his wife for better or for worse when inquiring about divorce, but Mr. Bounderby’s sheer attitude towards the whole situation showed he was not even willing to talk about the matter with Mr. Gradgrind (p220). Although the reader does not think Louisa to be worse off for losing him, the harsh reality of giving her until 12 o’clock the next day to come home and then storming out, is only reinforced when at five past twelve he ordered her things to be packed up and sent to her.
• When Mr. Bounderby’s lies were being discovered by the other characters, why did he not stop his mother from talking? He let her go on and reach the end of her story before having an outburst at everyone else present. Was this because he truly loved his mother and out of respect did not want her to know the story he had made up about a hard childhood? After all, she did seem heart broken by the idea when Mr. Gradgrind had conveyed it to her (p234/5).
• Mr. Bounderby accuses Stephen of a few things along the course of the narrative, but he never seems to be guilty of any of the crimes. Firstly, although he admitted Stephen was one of the good ones, Mr. Bounderby does make the supposition that Stephen has come to see him to complain about his wages; he then goes on to accuse him of neglecting his wife, even though he tried so hard to look after her, something which Mr. Bounderby can’t even be credited with; and lastly, he accused him of the bank robbery which turned out to have been committed by Tom.

The Gradgrind family

• Mrs. Gradgrind only appears to have one worry in life and that is to keep her husband pacified, she says on multiple occasions to her children “you know very well that if it was ever to reach your father’s ears I should never hear the last of it” (p48).
• There are many moments when the mechanics of Mr. Gradgrind’s life can be seen, one in particular is when he is talking to Sissy, now both coming to terms with her failing studies and says: “The course you pursued, you pursued according to the system – the system – and there is no more to be said about it” (p81), when she tries to put forth that she may have learnt more had she tried to learn less.
• When Tom is talking about Louisa’s marriage and saying that she married Mr. Bounderby for his benefit, he seems to think that it is quite unnatural for her not to want to cheat her husband out of money to give it to him (p158).
• It is somewhat a shame that Mrs. Gradgrind was not around to appreciate the change in her husband’s character, it would have been interesting to see how she would have handled this, and if it would have produced any affect on her health.

Comparing and connecting characters

• Part of Louisa’s “what does it matter” attitude towards life may have come from her mother, who when she sent them off to study, did it with “go and be something ological directly” (p15). It is a sense of pick one of the pre-selected options for you, they are all fine so what does it matter which one you choose?
• In reality, Mr. Gradgrind’s treatment of Louisa is not that different from the circus folk towards Sissy, they show a lot of love and affection (p35) which is supposed to be more suited to their way of life, but Mr. Gradgrind with all his fact enforcement is not devoid of this same affection towards his daughter.
• Upon Sissy’s departure from the circus folk, it reads that they said good-bye “in a variety of voices from all the room” (p36), which was to strongly contrast the united voices of Mr. Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby and the school in general that were going to try and teach her a strict set of Facts.
• Sissy managed to do for her father what Louisa could not do for her brother: “I used to read to him to cheer his courage” (p53).
• In comparison to Sissy, Louisa was quite a fruitless child in the end: she could neither take care of her own family nor her husband, stated throughout that Louisa wished she could cheer up her brother when he was tiered of life, did not have the patience to look after her mother in poor health, and never did any of the house chores required of a wife such as prepare and serve her husband his food; also, after everything, her studies were of little use to her as she would not be a working woman, and although she pottered about the bank, it was nothing requiring anything mentally strenuous.
  
  Sissy on the other hand, without any real gain from her studies, acquired a respectable job looking after the Gradgrind family, and maintained her kind nature to such an extent that not only did she look after every character that was ever in need of attention (her father, Rachael, Stephen), but also managed to soften Mr. Gradgrind’s harsh ways.

• To a certain extent, Sissy is an experiment to Mr. Gradgrind, saying it “is a case for rigid training, and I shall observe it with interest” (p43).

Mr. Gradgrind’s development

• Mr. Gradgrind was fortunate enough to have five young Gradgrinds (p7), since his parenting skills went slightly awry with his oldest two Tom and Louisa, he was lucky that with the help of his favourite eldest daughter, he could make amends with the youngest three.
• By the third chapter of the third book, it’s revealed that Mr. Gradgrind has not only changed in kindness, but now has a much more open view of life shown by the fact that he now calls Cecilia “Sissy” (p216).
• When Mr. Gradgrind is chatting with Sleary at the end and the latter tells a silly story about how he thinks dogs can talk to each other, Mr. Gradgrind listens to the whole story “confounded” (p261). Again showing a change in his character, but also hope that any future generations within his family will have the pleasure of hearing children’s stories.

Women

• The female characters in this story receive an array of contrasting treatment from men, they are on the whole pushed to one side, with Mrs. Gradgrind often being said to “die away and nobody mind her” (p16), and nearly all female characters at one point or another were sitting in a dark corner, out of sight if not also out of mind. But this typical treatment of women at the time was balanced out with quite a bit of freedom and respect, especially towards the younger generation. Louisa was free to decide if she married Mr. Bounderby or not, even when her father highly desired her to do so, he left the final decision up to her. Likewise, when she wanted to leave him, Louisa was not forced in any way to stay with him, even though this would have been her duty. Similarly, even at Sissy’s young age, she was consulted and was ultimately the one to decide whether or not to go with Mr. Gradgrind or stay with the circus. Sissy was also afterwards required to curtsy to Mrs. Sparsit whenever she saw her, due to her previously being of high society, although now was only a servant. Mr. Bounderby’s mother was given £30 a year, and although it was to keep her away, he did so through choice as he was not obliged to give her anything. As far as we know, Mr. Gradgrind did not exploit or abuse Sissy in any way, when most men would have, and not only this, but as he gradually comes around more to her way of thinking, he still did not take advantage of her with a proposal of marriage or anything of the kind. All the women mentioned within the circus group were said to be happy and loving. Stephen Blackpool not only showed respect to his drunken wife who only turned up now and then for money and to cause chaos, but he was also equally respectful towards Rachael, especially when he had to leave and stayed away from her so her reputation would not suffer.
• Most of the time when Mr. Bounderby refers to his wife, he does so with the term “Tom Gradgrind’s daughter”, however, it does not seem that he makes this reference so much because he believes in a woman’s importance through a man’s, but because it is the best way to describe her sound mind stocked full of facts.

Nature vs. Industrialization

• There are some moments, few as they may be, that the reader gets to see how nature is still more powerful than anything manmade: “The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was so bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour drooping over Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily” (p99).
• As industrialised as Coketown was, the richer part of society could still afford to have countryside in their lives, not only for walks but homes as well.
• There was scarcely an area untouched by human hands anywhere in or around Coketown, which can be seen by Sissy’s and Rachael’s walk (book III, chapter VI).

Fact vs. Sentiment

• Sissy insists it is of no importance to have flowers on the carpet after Mr. Gradgrind says that you would not find people walking over flowers in real life so you must not decorate with them in your home (p6). But all she sees is that they would not be damaged, so if there is no harm done and they would make the home “very pretty and pleasant” that is what matters. It’s beauty above fact.
• Even when you live with your heart and not your head, life is still full of difficulties which are just as hard to bear as the ones the Gradgrind family face, evidenced by Sissy and her father’s conversation: “Poor father said […] he was a shame and disgrace, and I should have done better without him all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that came into my heart” (p54).
• Aside from the people who worked in the circus, it would seem that some of Mr. Bounderby’s employees also put their feelings above facts, as we see Stephen describe a scene of his wife as: “The shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart” (p71).
• Mr. Gradgrind’s good treatment of Sissy paid off in the end as Sleary helped his son escape because Mr. Gradgrind had stood by her, so Sleary would stand by him (p259). In contrast to how Mr. Bounderby had let Mrs. Sparsit down when she found out about his lies, and as loyal as she had been, because he had not been truthful, she had lost all respect for him (book III, chapter IX).
• The circus according to the narrative was on “neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither town nor country” (p9). Its neutral status reflects its later importance for being a circus which Mr. Gradgrind can not condone, but also the place that Sissy (who brought balance into his life) was brought up, being raised by the same people who later on saved his son from arrest. It was an abhorrent way of life, but essential to happiness.

Time

• The theme of time appears in many different forms throughout the novel, but one of these times is particularly striking when Mr. Gradgrind tells Louisa that “it has always been [his] object so to educate [Louisa], as that [she] might, while still in [her] early youth, be almost any age” (p91). Here he is actually trying to represent timelessness, effectively eradicating childhood altogether.
• Though Mr. Gradgrind tried to make his children timeless with their education, it would seem Tom is far beyond his years physically, as one time when visiting Louisa, he had a “hand that trembled like an infirm old man’s” (p157/8).

Plot oddities

• What was odd about Stephen’s death was that he “had walked the whole journey” (p242), when Rachael had specifically sent him money so he would not have to do so (p230), also hoping that he would arrive quicker back to town. His death by falling into the Old Hell Shaft, therefore, was completely unnecessary as he should never have been walking through there to begin with.
• Another questionable matter in the story, is why did Tom not take the money from James when he had offered it to him, why did he prefer to commit the robbery? He still would have been in time to replace any money he had taken before anyone noticed, so this storyline was also slightly unnecessary. Also, with Tom being a gamer, how is it that he only had this one debt and so efficiently quit betting, never returning to his old habits after the current debts had resolved themselves? Can the fear of him being found out as the one who took the money, really be enough to scare him back into the straight and narrow?

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.