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 Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2
Summary 6
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 1 Summary 8
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 2 Summary 8
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 3 Summary 8
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 4 Summary 9
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 5 Summary 10
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 6 Summary 10
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 7 Summary 10
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 8 Summary 11
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 9 Summary 11
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 10 Summary 12
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 11 Summary 12
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 12 Summary 13
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 13 Summary 13
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 14 Summary 14
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 15 Summary 14
Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 16 Summary 15
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 1 Summary 15
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 2 Summary 16
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 3 Summary 16
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 4 Summary 17
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 5 Summary 17
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 6 Summary 18
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 7 Summary 18
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 8 Summary 19
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 9 Summary 20
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 10 Summary 20
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 11 Summary 21
Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 12 Summary 21
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 1 Summary 22
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 2 Summary 23
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 3 Summary 23
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 4 Summary 24
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 5 Summary 24
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 6 Summary 25
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 7 Summary 26
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 8 Summary 26
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 9 Summary 27
Themes: Themes: All Themes 27
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 THEMES: HARD TIMES 27
THEMES: A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING 27
THEMES: CLASS CONFLICTS 27
THEMES: EDUCATION 28
THEMES: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 28
THEMES: IMAGINATION VS. UTILITARIANISM 28
Themes: Themes: Hard Times 28
Themes: Themes: A Complete Human Being 29
Themes: Themes: Class Conflicts 30
Themes: Themes: Education 30
Themes: Themes: Industrial Revolution 31
Themes: Themes: Imagination vs. Utilitarianism 32
Characters 33
THOMAS GRADGRIND 33
LOUISA GRADGRIND BOUNDERBY 33
SISSY JUPE 33
TOM GRADGRIND 34
JOSIAH BOUNDERBY 34
MRS. SPARSIT 34
JAMES HARTHOUSE 34
STEPHEN BLACKPOOL 35
RACHAEL 35
MR. SLEARY 35
BITZER 35
MRS. PEGLER 35
MRS. GRADGRIND 35
Analysis 36
Character and Theme Quotes: Essential Quotes by Character: Louisa
Gradgrind Bounderby 37
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 1: BOOK 1, CHAPTER 3 37
SUMMARY 38
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 2: BOOK 2, CHAPTER 6 38
SUMMARY 38
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 3: BOOK 3, CHAPTER 1 38
SUMMARY 39
ANALYSIS OF ESSENTIAL PASSAGES 39
Character and Theme Quotes: Essential Quotes by Theme: Rationalism 40
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 1: BOOK 1, CHAPTER 1 40
SUMMARY 40
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 2: BOOK 2, CHAPTER 12 40
SUMMARY 41
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 3: BOOK 3, CHAPTER 9 41
SUMMARY 41
ANALYSIS OF ESSENTIAL PASSAGES 42
Quotes in Context: “What I Want Is, Facts” 42
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapters 1-2 43
STUDY QUESTIONS 43
ANSWERS 44

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Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapters 3-4 44
STUDY QUESTIONS 44
ANSWERS 45
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapters 5-6 46
STUDY QUESTIONS 46
ANSWERS 46
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapter 7 47
STUDY QUESTIONS 47
ANSWERS 47
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapter 8 48
STUDY QUESTIONS 48
ANSWERS 49
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapter 9 49
STUDY QUESTIONS 49
ANSWERS 50
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapters 10-12 50
STUDY QUESTIONS 50
ANSWERS 51
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapter 13 52
STUDY QUESTIONS 52
ANSWERS 52
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapters 14-15 53
STUDY QUESTIONS 53
ANSWERS 54
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book I, Chapter 16 54
STUDY QUESTIONS 54
ANSWERS 55
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapters 1-3 56
STUDY QUESTIONS 56
ANSWERS 56
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapters 4-5 57
STUDY QUESTIONS 57
ANSWERS 57
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapter 6 58
STUDY QUESTIONS 58
ANSWERS 59
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapters 7-8 59
STUDY QUESTIONS 60
ANSWERS 60
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapter 9 61
STUDY QUESTIONS 61
ANSWERS 61
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book II, Chapters 10-12 62
STUDY QUESTIONS 62
ANSWERS 63
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapters 1-2 63
STUDY QUESTIONS 63
ANSWERS 64
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Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapter 3 65
STUDY QUESTIONS 65
ANSWERS 65
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapters 4-5 66
STUDY QUESTIONS 66
ANSWERS 66
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapter 6 67
STUDY QUESTIONS 67
ANSWERS 68
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapter 7 68
STUDY QUESTIONS 68
ANSWERS 69
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes: Book III, Chapters 8-9: 70
STUDY QUESTIONS 70
ANSWERS 70

5
Summary
Mr. Thomas Gradgrind raises his children on facts and facts alone. Along with the schoolmaster, Mr.
M’Choakumchild, he runs a school where children learn piles of facts and nothing else. Sissy Jupe, one of the
students and the daughter of a circus man, fails to define “horse.” The boy Bitzer does instead. The children learn
that fancy is never acceptable, only facts.

As he walks home to Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind, whom the narrator describes as “an eminently practical” man,
notices “Sleary’s Horse-Riding,” the circus in which Sissy’s father, Signor Jupe, performs with his dog, Merrylegs.
Mr. Gradgrind is horrified to find two of his children, Louisa and Tom, peeping at the show. He scolds them for their
idleness and folly. Louisa is unrepentant and says she is tired of everything.

Back at Stone Lodge, Mr. Bounderby, who is Mr. Gradgrind’s friend, is telling Mrs. Gradgrind all about his horrible
childhood. Born in a ditch, abandoned by his mother, raised by a drunken grandmother, and generally abused all
around, Mr. Bounderby now takes pride in being a self-made man. The listening Mrs. Gradgrind, a weak woman
physically and mentally, hardly knows how to respond. She is displeased with the behavior of her children, and the
two men agree that Sissy Jupe must be the bad influence.

When Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, however, go to visit Sissy’s father in a poor area of Coketown (the
industrial city where the Grandgrinds and Mr. Bounderby live), they learn that he has abandoned the girl. Mr.
Gradgrind offers Sissy a place in his home and school as long as she forgets her circus friends. Mr. Sleary, head of
the circus, offers her an apprenticeship. Knowing that her father wants her to have an education, Sissy chooses to
go with Mr. Gradgrind.

Mr. Bounderby’s housekeeper, Mrs. Sparsit, is a woman born into high society but impoverished by her marriage
and early widowhood. Sissy remains at the Bounderby home for a little while until Mr. Gradgrind decides firmly what
to do with her. He determines to make her a helper to his wife, but she must focus on facts. The Gradgrinds, after all,
are forbidden to wonder or imagine.

Tom and Louisa are dissatisfied with their life and education. Tom will be apprenticed to Mr. Bounderby soon, and he
intends to use Louisa’s influence over the man to his own advantage. Sissy struggles in her new position, for she is
not a girl guided by facts but by common sense and compassion. She will not accept that her father has left her
permanently.

The scene then shifts to the “Hand” Stephen Blackpool. He is in love with another Hand named Rachael but married
to a drunken woman who is often absent. That night Stephen’s wife returns to his room, and the next day Stephen
goes to Mr. Bounderby for advice. Mr. Bounderby tells him nothing can be done. Divorce is too expensive. Stephen
is married, and he had better mind his work and accept his fate. Stephen laments over this “muddle.”

As he leaves Mr. Bounderby’s home, Stephen meets an old woman in the street who asks him how Mr. Bounderby
is doing. When Stephen returns home, Rachael is there, caring for his wife. She tells him to sleep for a while, and
Stephen awakens later to find Rachael dozing and his wife on the verge of taking poison. Rachael starts up just in
time to prevent that. Stephen calls her an angel.
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Time passes. Sissy finishes school but stays in the Gradgrind home. Tom is apprenticed to Mr. Bounderby. One day,
Mr. Gradgrind tells Louisa that Mr. Bounderby has asked to marry her. Louisa is apathetic toward life by this point,
and she agrees to the proposal. Eight weeks later, Louisa and Mr. Bounderby marry. Tom is pleased because he
thinks Louisa’s position will work in his favor. Mrs. Sparsit decides to pity Mr. Bounderby and treat him like a victim of
his marriage.

The next year, Mrs. Sparsit is living at the bank as its keeper with the assistance of Bitzer, who is now a light porter.
Tom Gradgrind works there, too, quite unsuccessfully. Mr. James Harthouse arrives in town on a letter of
introduction from Mr. Gradgrind to Mr. Bounderby. Mr. Harthouse is a bored young gentleman, but he is decidedly
intrigued by Louisa. He quizzes Tom about her but is unimpressed and even disgusted by the young man’s attitude.

Meanwhile, the Hands are gathered in their Hall to listen to the organizer Slackbridge, who is encouraging them to
unite against the owners. Stephen will not join them, and they shun him. Mr. Bounderby calls Stephen in to see him,
and Stephen tries to explain the problem with the workers and their poor conditions. Only treating them like human
beings will help. Mr. Bounderby fires Stephen, who knows that he will have great difficulty finding work in the future.

Louisa visits Stephen, who has met up with Rachael and the woman he encountered once before, a Mrs. Pegler.
Louisa gives Stephen some money, but he will accept it only as a loan. Tom takes him aside and tells him to loiter at
the bank for an hour each evening because there might be an opportunity for him. Stephen does this, but nothing
happens. Then he leaves Coketown.

Mr. Harthouse has decided to seduce Louisa, and he gains her confidence by listening to her troubles with regard to
Tom, who is deeply in debt. Tom is horribly agitated when Mr. Harthouse speaks with him.

The next day, Mr. Bounderby arrives with the news that the bank has been robbed. He is sure that Stephen
Blackpool is the culprit. Mrs. Sparsit, shaken by the robbery, stays at the Bounderby estate, still pitying Mr.
Bounderby for his marriage and imagining Louisa descending a staircase to ruin due to her association with Mr.
Harthouse.

When Mr. Bounderby leaves on a business trip, Mrs. Sparsit is determined to catch Louisa and Mr. Harthouse in a
compromising position. She overhears Mr. Harthouse declare his love for Louisa. Louisa leaves the house soon after
but goes to her father’s home (her mother died a while before) for protection and help. She laments the limitations of
her education and life, and Mr. Gradgrind realizes he has made a horrible mistake in bringing up his children. Sissy
cares for Louisa, who asks for her compassion and help.

Sissy visits Mr. Harthouse and tells him he will not see Louisa again and must leave Coketown for good. Mrs. Sparsit
hurries to get Mr. Bounderby, who storms into the Gradgrind home only to be told that Louisa is under her father’s
protection. Mr. Bounderby refuses to allow Louisa time away and renounces her as his wife.

Mr. Bounderby puts up notices accusing Stephen of the robbery. Rachael denies it. She has written to Stephen, and
he will return in two days to clear his name. He does not show. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sparsit finds the mysterious woman,
Mrs. Pegler, who turns out to be Mr. Bounderby’s mother. He is not a self-made man after all, at least not as he
claims.

Sissy and Rachael go walking in the country one Sunday and find Stephen’s hat. He has fallen down a mine shaft

7
and is badly injured. Before he dies, he asks Mr. Gradgrind to clear his name. It becomes evident that Tom
Gradgrind is the real robber. Sissy arranges for Tom to go to Mr. Sleary to be sent out of the country, and this
happens even after the interference of Bitzer. Mr. Gradgrind reveals the truth and clears Stephen. Louisa does not
return to Mr. Bounderby but discovers life beyond facts and devotes herself to caring for the poor.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 1

Summary
A speaker stands in a plain school room. He has a square forehead, two dark eyes, a wide mouth, and a bald head
fringed with bristles of hair. He wears a square coat, emphasizing his square body. The speaker’s appearance
accentuates his hard, square words as he insists that the boys and girls before him be taught nothing but facts. The
schoolmaster, another gentleman, and several children listen to the speaker insist that facts alone are serviceable
and that everything else must be rooted out of the “little vessels” waiting to learn.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 2

Summary
Thomas Gradgrind is the speaker, and he is a man devoted to reason and facts and calculation. Now he calls upon
girl number twenty, who is Sissy Jupe, although Mr. Gradgrind insists that she be called “Cecilia.” He asks Sissy who
her father is, and she responds that he is one of the horse riders, circus entertainers. Mr. Gradgrind will not accept
that and labels Mr. Jupe as a horsebreaker, farrier, and veterinarian. Then he tells Sissy to define “horse.” She
cannot, and the boy Bitzer provides an exact scientific definition. Bitzer is a pale boy who contrasts with Sissy’s dark
hair and eyes. Sissy blushes deeply.

The third gentleman in the room is a powerful man, a fighter who is determined to get the best of anyone in anything.
He asks the students if they should ever use wallpaper with horses on it, and they soon learn that this is not
acceptable because it does not correspond with fact. Neither does flowered carpet, although Sissy says that she
would like such. When Sissy begins to say that she would fancy such representations of flowers, the men
immediately insist that fancy is never appropriate, only facts.

The schoolmaster’s name is Mr. M’Choakumchild, and he is filled to the brim with facts of all kinds, which he is ready
to pour into the children. The narrator comments, however, that “If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better
he might have taught much more!”

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 3

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Summary
Mr. Gradgrind is walking home, thinking about his intention to make his school and pupils perfect models of
education. His own five children have been trained on facts for their whole lives, never being allowed to indulge in
nursery rhymes or stories or imagination. Even their home, Stone Lodge, is a matter-of-fact place, perfectly
symmetrical and meticulously designed in all ways. The children have full access to carefully arranged cabinets of
scientific specimens and experiments.

Mr. Gradgrind considers himself an affectionate father but especially “an eminently practical” man, and everyone
agrees with that description. As he is walking home, he notices the noisy, chaotic spectacle of “Sleary’s Horse-
Riding,” a circus show with fantastic acts and characters, including Sissy’s father, Signor Jupe, and his performing
dog, Merrylegs. Mr. Gradgrind would have walked right past, but he is shocked to see two of his own children,
Louisa and Thomas, peeking through holes to catch a glimpse of the show. Horrified at this event, Mr. Gradgrind
scolds his children for folly and idleness. They should be focusing on facts as they have been trained. Louisa, who is
fifteen or sixteen years old, tells her father that she brought Thomas to the show. She is tired of everything, she
says, and is not repentant. Mr. Gradgrind asks his daughter what Mr. Bounderby would say if he knew of this
offense.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 4

Summary
Mr. Bounderby is Mr. Gradgrind’s best friend and a rich manufacturer, banker, and merchant. He is a large, coarse
man, puffed up with pride in his status as a “self-made man” and always ready to promote his rise from nothing at all
to his current position.

Now he stands by the fireplace at Stone Lodge, telling Mrs. Gradgrind all about his childhood. He was born in a
ditch; abandoned by his mother; raised by a wicked, alcoholic grandmother; kicked around by everyone; and always
sick. And he takes great pride in the whole story. Mrs. Gradgrind is a weak woman, almost transparent in her fragile
imbecility. She tries unsuccessfully to respond to Mr. Bounderby, who continues his story by relating his rise, without
education, to his position as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. He had no advantage, he insists, yet he is successful.

At this point, Mr. Gradgrind walks in with Louisa and Thomas. Louisa immediately mutters that the two have been
“peeping at the circus.” Mrs. Gradgrind is properly horrified, especially considering all the facts the young people
know. She tells them to “Go and be somethingological directly,” and the young people leave. Mr. Gradgrind and Mr.
Bounderby discuss the situation and decide that Sissy Jupe’s bad influence must be the problem. Mrs. Gradgrind
was the one who advocated to accept Sissy at the school, but Mr. Bounderby now asserts that she must be
dismissed at once. While Mr. Gradgrind goes to get Sissy’s father’s address, Mr. Bounderby visits Louisa and gives
her a kiss, which pleases her not at all.

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Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 5
Summary
Coketown is an industrial city filled with red brick buildings, tall chimneys, machinery, and coils of smoke. Its streets
and many of its people are nearly exactly alike, and the whole town’s focus is on facts and more facts, figures and
markets, money and purchases. There are eighteen different denominations of churches in the town, but the working
people belong to none of them, and those who do belong complain constantly of the low morals of the working class,
who are the only ones who indulge themselves in a bit of fancy now and then to break up the monotony and are thus
accused of being unmanageable.

Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby make their way to Pod’s End, where Signor Jupe is staying, and meet a terrified
Sissy along the way. Bitzer has been tormenting her. The men send him on his way and then accompany Sissy to
the public house where she has been staying with her father.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 6

Summary
At the Pegasus Arms, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby fail to notice the elements of fancy, for it is dark and
shabby. Sissy brings them to the room she and her father share, but her father is not there, and Sissy runs off. Two
members of Sleary’s company, Mr. E. W. B. Childers and Master Kidderminster, speak with Mr. Gradgrind and Mr.
Bounderby, but they largely fail to understand the slang of the circus men, who eventually communicate that Signor
Jupe has run off and abandoned his daughter due to his embarrassment at his failing act.

Other members of the company, including leader Mr. Sleary, appear. They are a strange, uneducated folk, but they
love and support each other. When Sissy returns and realizes what has happened, she is devastated. Mr. Gradgrind
offers her a choice. She can continue her education (against Mr. Bounderby’s advice), but she must forget her circus
friends. Mr. Sleary also offers a choice. He will take her on as an apprentice. Knowing that her father wants an
education for her, Sissy decides to go with Mr. Gradgrind, believing that her father left her so that she could have a
better life.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 7

Summary
Mr. Bounderby has an elderly housekeeper named Mrs. Sparsit. She has high social connections and takes pride
that her husband was connected to the socially enviable Powler family. Mrs. Sparsit’s marriage, however, was
unsatisfactory to say the least, and her husband died young, leaving her in poverty and in a feud with her only
10
relative, Lady Scadgers. Therefore, Mrs. Sparsit manages Mr. Bounderby’s household, and he honors her social
standing and prominent upbringing with great enjoyment and, often, exaggeration.

Mr. Bounderby now expresses his opinion of Mr. Gradgrind’s acceptance of Sissy Jupe, whom he calls “the
tumbling-girl.” Sissy is actually staying at the Bounderby home so that Mr. Gradgrind can firmly determine if she will
be a decent companion for Louisa. Mr. Bounderby expresses his opinions of Louisa and his intentions of
apprenticing Tom and praises Mrs. Sparsit’s high-society past.

Mr. Gradgrind then arrives and asks for Sissy to be sent in. The girl curtseys to everyone except Mrs. Sparsit,
earning Mr. Bounderby’s rebuke. Mr. Gradgrind then questions Sissy, explaining his intentions to educate her and
make her a helper to Mrs. Gradgrind. Sissy recalls the wonderful fantasy books she used to read to her father, and
Mr. Gradgrind reprimands her sharply for her appreciation of “such destructive nonsense.” Then he takes Sissy back
to Stone Lodge.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 8

Summary
The Gradgrind children are firmly forbidden to wonder. In fact, much of the population of Coketown, including the
eighteen denominations, agree that wonder is unacceptable. Only the poorest class of people, those who work hard
every day, wonder and read stories and reflect on humanity in any deep and creative way.

Tom expresses his hatred for life to Louisa. He thinks that Sissy hates him and all the rest of the Gradgrinds. He
notices that Sissy feels “heavy,” just like Tom himself does. He calls himself a donkey and announces that he would
“like to kick like one,” too, everyone except Louisa. Louisa replies that she realizes how unfortunate she herself is.
She does not know what other girls know, and she cannot amuse her brother or give him any pleasure through
stories. Both siblings understand the disadvantage of their education and upbringing.

Tom declares that he will have his revenge when he goes to live with Mr. Bounderby. He will manage his boss by
referring to Louisa’s preferences, for she is Mr. Bounderby’s “little pet,” and he will do anything for her. That, Tom
thinks, will work to his advantage, and he is looking forward to getting away from home. Louisa stares into the fire,
lost in thought. She begins to say that her thoughts will wander, and at that moment, Mrs. Gradgrind opens the door
and scolds Tom for being a bad influence on his sister. Louisa denies this, but her mother will not listen and declares
that she wishes she had never had a family.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 9

Summary
Sissy Jupe is struggling in her new situation. Her brain simply does not correspond to an education by facts and
figures, and she refuses to let go of the hope that her father will return someday. Mr. M’Choakumchild pounds Sissy
11
with questions she cannot answer, and Mr. Gradgrind expresses his disappointment. Sissy’s spirits drop.

Sissy turns to Louisa for support. She calls herself a “stupid girl” who is always making mistakes, and she laments
that she cannot seem to get anything right. She tells some of her “mistakes” to Louisa, revealing that her answers
are filled with a solid common sense and sensitivity that Mr. M’Choakumchild refuses to acknowledge. Sissy also
relates some of her family history to Louisa, speaking of her parents and their love for each other and for her. She is
determined to believe that her father left her for her own good, yet she remembers how he became more and more
upset by the failure of his act. She always tried to cheer him by reading stories.

Louisa wants to hear how Sissy’s father left, but Tom selfishly interrupts at this point. Tom wants Louisa’s help in
getting Mr. Bounderby to invite him to dinner. Louisa asks Tom to wait and listens to Sissy’s account of her last day
with her father. Sissy still waits every day for a letter about him, much to the annoyance of Mr. Gradgrind, who insists
that she accept the fact that her father is gone, and of Mrs. Gradgrind, who complains that she never hears the end
of anything.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 10

Summary
Stephen Blackpool is forty years old but looks older. He is a “Hand” who works in one of Coketown’s mills. The
narrator notes that Hands might be better liked if they were “only hands and stomachs” rather than actual human
beings. “Old Stephen” has gray hair and a stooping gait. He is not especially intelligent, the narrator remarks, but
there is, perhaps, something else in him.

One wet night, Stephen is standing outside waiting for Rachael. He finally meets her, and while she admits that they
are “old friends,” she also reminds him that it is best for them not to be seen together too often. She tells him not to
think or fret too much, and he remarks that things are in such a muddle. He can never get beyond it. Stephen walks
Rachael home, and they wish each other a fond good night.

Stephen’s home is merely a rented room, and he finds an unpleasant surprise when he returns. There is a woman in
the room. She is drunk, dirty, and disheveled, and she is Stephen’s wife, come back again after another of her
frequent absences. She falls heavily onto Stephen’s bed and goes to sleep while he sits in a chair, only getting up to
put a covering over her.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 11

Summary
The next day, Stephen bends over his loom at the mill. The narrator reminds readers that the work of God will
always triumph over the work of man. Humans will always have more dignity than machines. At noon break, Stephen
goes to visit Mr. Bounderby, the mill’s owner. He enters the parlor, where Mr. Bounderby sits with Mrs. Sparsit.
12
Mr. Bounderby is surprised to see Stephen, for the latter has never caused any trouble and is not “one of the
unreasonable ones.” He asks Stephen what he has to say. Stephen wants advice. He explains that he married when
he was young and that his wife started drinking and got worse and worse. Stephen tried to be patient, but his wife
left him. She reappears now and again, completely disgraced. Stephen has heard that some people have gotten
divorced, and he wonders if it is possible for him.

Mr. Bounderby tells Stephen that it is not possible. He has taken his wife for better or worse, and there is no help for
it. Divorce is expensive, Mr. Bounderby says, and Stephen can in no way afford it. Stephen laments the muddle he
is in, and Mr. Bounderby instructs him not to question his country but to mind his own business and his work.
Stephen thanks Mr. Bounderby and leaves.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 12

Summary
When Stephen emerges from Mr. Bounderby’s house, he meets an old woman in the street. She asks him if he has
seen Mr. Bounderby, and she wants to know how the latter looks and how he is doing. Stephen tells her, and the
woman thanks him. She remarks that she has come by Parliamentary that morning and will go back that night. She
comes to Coketown once a year, hoping to “see the gentlemen.” She has not seen Mr. Bounderby this year, but now
she has, in a way, through Stephen’s eyes, and she will make do with that.

The woman walks with Stephen, asking him if he is happy. He answers vaguely that everyone has troubles. She
presses, trying to find out what it is like to work at the factory, which she thinks is a fine one. Stephen does not know
quite what to make of her.

That evening, Stephen walks home from work, taking his time, brooding as he goes, and thinking of the gentle,
unselfish Rachael, whom he loves. He feels as though he is wasting his life, bound to a woman who is mostly dead.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 13

Summary
When Stephen gets home, he discovers Rachael sitting by the bed. She is caring for his wife, who is modestly
concealed by a curtain. Stephen’s eyes fill with tears at the sight. The landlady had come for Rachael, and Rachael
has done what she can, for Stephen’s wife was once her friend. She could not allow her to suffer and die alone.

Rachael’s pity extends to Stephen, and she says that he has suffered cruelly and calls herself his “poor friend, with
all my heart and mind.” Then she tends the other woman’s wounds. Rachael will stay for a while so that Stephen can
sleep. She will leave before the other woman wakes.

13
Stephen finds himself trembling and afraid. He tells Rachael to sit by the bed so that he can fix that image of
goodness and mercy in his mind. Then he closes his eyes and drifts into sleep. He listens to the wind and dreams
that he is standing on some kind of raised stage that falls out from beneath him as the burial service is read.

When Stephen wakes, Rachael is dozing. Stephen watches as a hand moves out from behind the curtain. The
woman in the bed sits up and draws a bottle on the table toward her. She pours some of the liquid into a mug and
raises it to her lips. Then Rachael wakes and seizes the cup. The woman strikes her, but Rachael prevents her from
taking the poison. Rachael then empties the rest of the bottle into the basin.

Before Rachael leaves, Stephen calls her an angel. Rachael denies it. Stephen expresses how desperate he has
become and confesses that he may have allowed his wife to drink the poison. Yet Rachael brings out something
better in him, and he vows that he will always see her whenever he is angry and upset.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 14

Summary
Time passes. Louisa, Tom, and Sissy grow up. Sissy finishes school, quite unsatisfactorily in Mr. Gradgrind’s eyes.
She still waits for her father, and while Mr. Gradgrind rebukes this, he acknowledges that she has become a useful
member of the household and an affectionate young woman.

Mr. Gradgrind wins a seat in Parliament and becomes so busy that he hardly notices the growth of his children. One
day he looks at Louisa and realizes that she has become “quite a young woman.” Thomas is now apprenticed to Mr.
Bounderby, and on the day when Mr. Gradgrind asks Louisa to meet him the next morning for a serious talk, Tom
comes to visit his sister.

Tom tells Louisa that their father is with Mr. Bounderby that evening. Then he asks her if she is fond of her brother.
Louisa assures him that she is but scolds him gently for not coming to see her more often. Tom hints that they might
be together a good deal more and that Louisa should always remember how fond of him she is. The narrator reflects
on Old Time and his secret factory in which he quietly spins out lives.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 15

Summary
Mr. Gradgrind’s Observatory is filled with books of facts and a statistical clock that ticks off every second. Louisa
meets her father there the next morning, and he compliments her for being well-educated and not prone to impulse
or romanticism. She looks at everything through the lens of “reason and calculation,” and he wants her to do so now,
for she has been offered a proposal of marriage.

Louisa listens quietly without emotion as her father explains that Mr. Bounderby has watched her for many years
14
with an eye toward the time when he might marry her. That time has now come. Louisa asks her father if he thinks
she loves Mr. Bounderby and if he or Mr. Bounderby would ask that she love him. The uncomfortable Mr. Gradgrind
responds with hesitation that her expression is misplaced. She asks how he would advise her to speak, but he
cannot answer. Instead, he urges her to focus on the fact that she has received a proposal and must decide whether
or not to accept it.

For an instant, it seems that the barriers between father and daughter may come down, but then the moment
passes. The opportunity for a connection is lost. Louisa reflects that life is short and that she is fit for little and can do
little. Then she asks herself, “What does it matter?” Louisa consents to marry Mr. Bounderby. She assures her father
that she has never entertained another proposal, for she has seen and experienced nothing. She knows nothing of
affections and fancies. All she has been taught are demonstrations and facts. She has never had a child’s heart or a
child’s dream or a child’s belief or a child’s fear. Mr. Gradgrind thinks this is a compliment upon himself and misses
his daughter’s meaning entirely.

Father and daughter go to tell Mrs. Gradgrind the news. She would like the wedding to take place soon and worries
how she will address her new son-in-law. Sissy, who is present, looks at Louisa with pity and sorrow, and Louisa
turns away.

Chapter Summaries: Book 1, Chapter 16

Summary
Mr. Bounderby worries about how to tell Mrs. Sparsit of his upcoming marriage. He does not know if she will become
horribly upset and leave his house at once. He buys some smelling salts in case she decides to faint and then tells
her that he means to marry Louisa Gradgrind. Mrs. Sparsit’s reaction surprises him, for she merely wishes him
happiness. Mr. Bounderby invites Mrs. Sparsit to move into a comfortable apartment at the Bank and become its
keeper on an “annual compliment,” or stipend. Mrs. Sparsit accepts. She has decided that she will adopt an attitude
of pity toward Mr. Bounderby and treat him as a victim with regard to his marriage.

Eight weeks later, Mr. Bounderby marries Louisa Gradgrind in a matter-of-fact ceremony without sentiment or
romance. At the wedding breakfast, Mr. Bounderby makes a speech about how far he has risen in life. Before the
couple departs on their wedding trip, Louisa clings to Tom, who calls her a “first-rate sister.” Then Louisa recovers
her composure and leaves with her new husband.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 1

Summary
It is summer in Coketown, and the streets and factories are “shrouded in a haze” of smoke. The narrator remarks on
how the mill owners often feel ill-used when the government and the inspectors protest dangerous conditions or
require them to make concessions to their workers. They never consider that perhaps the Hands are the ones who
15
are ill-used. The heat is oppressive and the smells are overwhelming.

Mrs. Sparsit sits in her apartment at the Bank. A year has passed since Mr. Bounderby married Louisa Gradgrind,
and Mrs. Sparsit still pities Louisa. Now she thinks of herself as the “Bank Fairy,” the one in charge of reigning over
the bank and its equipment. She is accompanied and served by a light porter, the boy Bitzer now grown up. The
bank is closed for the day, and Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer discuss the workers and their efforts to unite. They also
discuss the shortcomings of Tom Gradgrind, whom Bitzer calls “a dissipated, extravagant idler.” Bitzer, on the other
hand, is determined to behave as a perfectly “rational creature” according to his education, and he expects everyone
else to do so as well.

A stranger then knocks on the door of the bank. He is a languid young gentleman with an air of boredom. Mrs.
Sparsit agrees to see him. The young man is looking for Mr. Bounderby, for he has a letter of introduction from Mr.
Gradgrind. Mrs. Sparsit provides Mr. Bounderby’s address, and the young man questions her about Mrs. Bounderby
and then leaves. Mrs. Sparsit sits deep in thought and rises to her supper with an “O, you Fool!”

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 2

Summary
The young gentleman is Mr. James Harthouse, the younger brother of an associate of Mr. Gradgrind, and he has
been wandering his way through the world, getting bored everywhere. His brother has sent him to Coketown to “go
in” with the “hard Fact fellows” for a while.

Mr. Harthouse now presents himself at the Bounderby estate with his letter of introduction and a flattering attitude.
Mr. Bounderby, as usual, pronounces on his own low background and rise up the social ladder and complains about
the Hands. Then he introduces his guest to Louisa, whom Mr. Harthouse finds remarkable. He is baffled by her and
by her situation. He converses with her about his own indolence and carelessness and about his lack of personal
opinions until Mr. Bounderby interrupts.

When Tom walks in late for dinner, Mr. Harthouse notices Louisa's face light up with a beautiful smile. Realizing that
Louisa cares for “the whelp,” Mr. Harthouse is even more intrigued, although he is thoroughly unimpressed with
Tom, who agrees to show him back to his hotel.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 3

Summary
The narrator labels Tom as a hypocrite who is “incapable at last of governing himself” and who has given in to his
desires to the point of becoming a monster. Back at the hotel, Mr. Harthouse gives Tom a drink and a cigar and
engages him in conversation to find out more about Louisa. Tom becomes more and more familiar and comfortable
and talks more and more about the Bounderbys, claiming that Louisa only married Mr. Bounderby so that she could
16
do a good turn to her brother. She cares nothing about Mr. Bounderby at all, Tom says, but she does not mind her
situation. She can “shut herself up within herself.”

Tom continues his conversation, speaking about the Gradgrind family’s upbringing and Mrs. Sparsit, until he falls
asleep on the sofa. When he finally leaves, the narrator comments that if he had been “less of a whelp and more of a
brother,” he might have gone off and drowned himself in the river.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 4

Summary
The Hands have gathered in the crowded, suffocating Hall to listen to an orator declaim on brotherhood and
resistance and the “united power” of the workers against their oppressors. The crowd greets his message with
cheers, yet the orator, whose name is Slackbridge, is not really one of them. Still, he speaks well and makes the
crowd feel the emotions and think the ideas he desires even as he sweats profusely and wipes his forehead
meticulously. He knows how to get the people to respond.

Yet there is one man whom Slackbridge labels a traitor, who refuses to unite with the other workers. It is Stephen
Blackpool, and he now takes the stage to speak to the crowd. All he wants to do is tell the truth, but Slackbridge
keeps interrupting him with scorn. Stephen admits that the orator speaks better than he does, for that is his trade, yet
he will not change his position. He accepts their exile and leaves the Hall condemned.

Stephen is hereafter shunned by the Hands. For four days, he is all alone at work, in the streets, and everywhere.
Bitzer then comes to him with a message that Mr. Bounderby wants to see him. Stephen goes at once.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 5

Summary
Mr. Bounderby blows himself up into a metaphorical gale when Stephen stands before him. Mr. Harthouse is
present, too, as Stephen simply maintains that he has nothing to say. Mr. Bounderby insists, but Stephen remains
firm. All Stephen will say is that he has made promises.

Stephen ends up talking to Louisa, who is also present. He says that he has known the men in Coketown his whole
life, and he understands them well. They truly want to do what is right, he insists, but he will not say anything else.
He has not come to complain but because he was sent for. This whole thing has become quite a muddle, and
somehow the Hands are always wrong and the gentlemen are always right.

Mr. Bounderby declares that men like Slackbridge should be brought up as felons and shipped off. Stephen replies
that such an action will not solve the problem. The trouble does not lie with them. A “strong hand” on the workers will

17
not solve the problem either, nor will the insistence that the owners are always right and the workers always wrong.
Only treating the workers as true human beings will do the job.

Mr. Bounderby then fires Stephen, telling him he can finish his current project. Then he must leave. Stephen realizes
that if he is dismissed, he will never be hired elsewhere. He calls on heaven’s help as he departs.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 6

Summary
As Stephen leaves Mr. Bounderby’s house, he meets Rachael and the mysterious old woman he had previously
encountered. This time, the woman says, she has come down over two days. She is very interested in Mrs.
Bounderby, and Stephen describes Louisa to her. Stephen also reveals to Rachael that Mr. Bounderby has fired him
and that he has decided to leave Coketown. His perspective is unselfish, for he realizes that if he goes, he will save
many people much trouble.

Stephen invites Rachael and the woman to his room for tea. The lady tells him that her name is Mrs. Pegler. She is a
widow and has, she nervously explains, lost her son. When the landlady announces that Bounderby has arrived,
Mrs. Pegler begs Stephen and Rachael to hide her, but she merely retreats into a corner when she realizes the
visitor is Louisa.

Louisa has come out of compassion for Stephen’s plight. Tom is with her. Louisa asks a few questions to better
understand the situation, and Rachael reveals that she is the one who asked Stephen to promise that he would avoid
trouble. He is determined to keep his word by not uniting with the workers. Louisa asks Stephen what he will do, and
then she tries to give him money. At first, he refuses, but he finally accepts two pounds as a loan.

Tom then asks Stephen to step out for a moment and says that there might be an opportunity for him. All Stephen
has to do is stand in the street outside the bank for an hour each evening until he leaves town. Tom says that he
does not know if the opportunity will come through or not, but it might.

After Tom and Louisa leave, Stephen and Rachael walk Mrs. Pegler to the inn. Then Stephen walks Rachael home,
and they say their goodbyes, not knowing if they will ever see each other again. Stephen promises to write.

The next day, Stephen works. Then he does as he has promised Tom. He loiters outside the bank for his allotted
time. He does this for two more nights, and on the last, he actually waits for two hours. But nothing happens. The
next day, Stephen leaves Coketown, turning his face to the road and leaving “a true and loving heart behind.”

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 7

Summary
18
Mr. James Harthouse has decided to seduce Louisa. The two begin to have many private conversations, and Mr.
Harthouse is amused in a bored sort of way. Even his wickedness lacks energy. He spends much time at the
Bounderbys’ country home, an estate that Mr. Bounderby proudly obtained through a foreclosed mortgage, just
talking to Louisa and trying to discover more about her.

One of the first things Mr. Harthouse notices is Louisa’s continuing devotion to Tom. Her face lights up at the mere
mention of him, and Mr. Harthouse is struck by her beauty. Louisa confides in her new “friend” that Tom has taken to
gambling and that she has given him money. She says that she does not regret doing so, but she has sold some
“trinkets” to pay her brother’s debts. Yet she is not always able to give him what he wants.

Mr. Harthouse assures Louisa of his interest in the situation and of his sympathy. He also notes that he finds one
“great fault” in Tom, and that is the way he treats his sister. Louisa’s eyes fill with tears, and Mr. Harthouse reveals
his aspiration to correct Tom in this fault.

In fact, Mr. Harthouse confronts Tom almost immediately. Tom is obviously agitated, “hard up, and bothered out of
my life,” he says. Mr. Harthouse scolds him for being inconsiderate to Louisa and for taking money from her. Tom is
nearly crying, mindlessly scattering rose petals. He insists that Louisa could get more money for him if she really
wanted to. Mr. Harthouse is disgusted by Tom’s attitude but offers his help in return for Tom’s treating Louisa better.
Tom, somewhat relieved, apologizes to his sister at dinner, lighting Louisa’s face with a smile that she turns on Mr.
Harthouse, much to his pleasure.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 8

Summary
The next morning, Mr. Harthouse thinks about how much he has accomplished with Louisa so far. He has won her
confidence and excluded her husband. Her barriers are beginning to come down. Yet Mr. Harthouse still cannot be
overly enthusiastic in his wickedness. He is not the “roaring lion” kind of devil but the “trimmed, smoothed, and
varnished” variety.

As Mr. Harthouse leaves the house, he meets Mr. Bounderby, who is in a great state of excitement. The bank has
been robbed. The burglar had a false key and took 150 pounds or so. Mr. Bounderby insists that the loss might have
been much greater and that the robber must have been disturbed. He also says that Louisa fainted when she heard
the news.

Louisa, Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer arrive then, and they all discuss the situation, including Bitzer’s lack of watchfulness
and his discovery of the crime. The money has been taken from Tom’s safe. Tom himself is helping the police at the
bank.

Mr. Bounderby is certain that he knows who the culprit is: Stephen Blackpool. After all, he maintains, a dissatisfied
Hand is “fit for anything bad.” Mr. Bounderby recalls his meetings with Stephen, turning them to fit his own
interpretation of subsequent events. He is also suspicious of the mysterious old woman who has been seen in town.

19
Mrs. Sparsit, whose nerves have been badly shaken by the robbery, will stay at the country estate for a time until she
recovers. She quickly falls into the role of a selfish, deprecating “unselfishness” that becomes a nuisance to all, and
she maintains “her determination to pity Mr. Bounderby” in his married life. She consistently calls Louisa “Miss
Gradgrind,” remarks on her lack of care for her husband, and steps into the place of caregiver, doing all kinds of little
things for Mr. Bounderby that Louisa fails in.

After the house settles down for the evening, Louisa goes into Tom’s room. She asks her brother if he has anything
to tell her. He denies it. She begs him to tell her the truth. He says that he does not know what she means and that
she should go back to bed. Louisa gets nothing else out of him, and he pretends to sleep. When she leaves the
room, he locks the door and throws himself down in a temper tantrum of crying and tearing his hair.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 9

Summary
Mrs. Sparsit remains at the Bounderby home, watching everything and seeming to be everywhere at once. She
treats Mr. Harthouse in a kindly fashion and fishes for information about his relationship with Louisa. She also
continues her regimen of pity for Mr. Bounderby, letting him know that his wife is not caring for him as she should
and taking it upon herself to fill in the gaps.

Mr. Bounderby and Louisa have a slight argument that ends abruptly when she tells him she does not care to know
his meaning. “What does it matter?” she asks. Yet Mrs. Sparsit’s interference brings Louisa and Mr. Harthouse
closer together even though the lady herself insults Mr. Bounderby’s portrait when he is not present, calling him
“Noodle.”

Louisa receives a message that her mother is ill, and she goes to her at once. She has seldom been at her old home
since her marriage, for it has none of the fancies or fond memories of childhood associated with it. When Louisa
arrives, she finds Sissy by her mother’s side along with her younger sister, Jane.

Mrs. Gradgind is only partly lucid. She comments on how much Jane looks like Louisa and then wants to talk to
Louisa alone. There is something she is trying to remember, Mrs. Gradgrind frets. She cannot quite capture it. She
speaks of Louisa’s education but feels like something has been missed or forgotten in it. She wants to write a letter
to her husband about it, but she is no longer capable of doing so and soon passes away.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 10

Summary
Mrs. Sparsit’s pity for Mr. Bounderby is having its desired effect, and he insists that she remain at the estate. Mrs.
Sparsit now sees in her mind’s eye a grand staircase, and she watches Louisa descending lower and lower into
disgrace. She looks on with interest and even glee as Louisa steadily approaches her ruin.
20
There is no solution to the bank robbery as yet, and Mr. Bounderby does not care to speak much of it, especially
about the mysterious old woman. Louisa and Mr. Harthouse meet in the garden and discuss the robbery. Louisa has
a difficult time believing that Stephen is the culprit, but she says she does not understand much of human nature. Mr.
Harthouse tries to tell her that it would be perfectly possible for Stephen to have robbed the bank. It would be such a
common thing, he says. Louisa thinks there must be something bad in her to make her want to agree with him and to
feel better by his words.

Mrs. Sparsit continues to observe the comings and goings of Mr. Harthouse and imagine Louisa descending farther
and farther down the staircase of her imagination.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 11

Summary
Mrs. Gradgrind has been buried with little ceremony, and Mr. Gradgrind returns to London. Mrs. Sparsit keeps her
watch on Louisa. Mr. Harthouse is often unsure about Louisa, for she remains a mystery to him in many ways.

Then Mr. Bounderby leaves on a business trip for a few days. Mrs. Sparsit is to stay at the estate anyway as she has
been doing on weekends. Before she goes out, she calls Tom to have supper with her and learns that Mr. Harthouse
is expected back from his hunting trip the next day but does not intend to stop at the estate, although Tom thinks that
he may do so on Sunday.

The next day, Tom waits for Mr. Harthouse’s train, but the man himself does not arrive. Mrs. Sparsit thinks that he
must have gone straight to Louisa, and she hurries out to the estate. Louisa is on “the brink of the abyss” in Mrs.
Sparsit’s imagination.

The lady sneaks onto the estate’s grounds and hears Louisa and Mr. Harthouse talking together. Mr. Harthouse is
proclaiming his love for Louisa, and Mrs. Sparsit listens closely. Louisa keeps saying, “Not here,” and Mr. Harthouse
presses her to meet him somewhere else. She will not allow him up at the house. He pleads and laments while Mrs.
Sparsit hangs on every word with “gratified malice.” Then it begins to rain.

Louisa goes up to the house, but Mrs. Sparsit continues to stand in the rain, determined to see everything. Then
Louisa comes out and hurries away. Mrs. Sparsit follows, soggy and disheveled. They both take the train into
Coketown. By now Mrs. Sparsit is drenched and chilled, but she will remain on Louisa’s track. When the train arrives
in Coketown, the lady expects to see Louisa get on another train, but she does not. When Mrs. Sparsit checks
Louisa’s carriage, it is empty. She has lost her prey.

Chapter Summaries: Book 2, Chapter 12

Summary
21
Louisa has traveled straight to her old home, to her father who is there on vacation. He is shocked to see her, wet
and cold and despairing. Louisa confronts Mr. Gradgrind, cursing the hour she was born into the destiny that has
become hers. She has been living in a “state of conscious death” with no graces of soul or sentiments of heart. The
garden that she should have been is a wilderness. Her life is a void.

There are important things that her father has never nurtured in her or in himself, and Louisa feels the want of them
now. There are things that defy calculation that her father should have recognized and honored. If he had, perhaps
she would not be standing here. She has been robbed of something that would have made her a better human
being, yet she has long hungered and thirsted for whatever that is. If she had it, she would have been “wiser,
happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good respects.”

Mr. Gradgrind is cut to the heart and filled with pity for his daughter. Louisa continues, speaking of her marriage and
of Tom. Then she tells her father about Mr. Harthouse and what has happened. She is not disgraced, but she is in
desperate need of help. The philosophy and education her father has imposed upon her are no assistance at all.
They will not save her. In fact, they have brought her to this point. Now her father must save her in another way.
Louisa then falls to the floor insensible.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 1

Summary
When Louisa awakens, she is weak and in pain. Jane is beside her. Sissy has been caring for Louisa and making
everything bright and comfortable for her. Mr. Gradgrind enters when Jane calls him. He tells Louisa that there is no
longer any solid ground beneath his feet. He has realized the failure of his system yet assures his daughter that he
only ever intended to do what he thought was right. He now knows that it was not right. Mr. Gradgrind mistrusts
himself in everything and is not sure he is worthy of his daughter’s trust. He does not know exactly how to help her
but does understand that he has neglected the “wisdom of the Heart” to focus exclusively on the “wisdom of the
Head.”

Mr. Gradgrind continues that Jane’s training has been somewhat modified by certain “daily associations” that have
brought “love and gratitude” into her life and made her much happier. He thinks that perhaps the heart can do and
has been silently doing what the head cannot. “Can it be so?” he asks.

After Mr. Gradgrind leaves, someone else enters the room and stands beside Louisa. At first, Louisa feels angry and
resentful at this person, but that soon fades at the touch of a “sympathetic hand.” Sissy is there hoping to stay with
Louisa, to become something to her, to help her in some way. She tells Louisa that she has always loved her. Now
she wants to try to help. Louisa wonders why Sissy is not repelled by her pride and confusion and trouble and
unhappiness. Sissy says she is not. Finally, Louisa breaks and clings to Sissy, begging her to have compassion and
to show her love. Sissy does.

22
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 2
Summary
Mr. James Harthouse cannot figure out what has happened. He is agitated and far more upset than he cares to
admit. There is no word from Louisa. She is not at the estate nor the bank. Even Mrs. Sparsit is gone. Tom knows
nothing and is miffed that Mr. Harthouse never showed the night before.

Mr. Harthouse cannot settle to anything. He thinks that perhaps he should prepare for a fight with Mr. Bounderby.
Instead, he paces his room, tries to read the newspaper, and feels like he is being slowly tortured. The waiter
interrupts to say that Mr. Harthouse has a visitor. It is not the person Mr. Harthouse expects. Rather, there is a pretty
young woman standing before him. She has an “innocent and youthful” expression and no fear of him whatsoever.

Sissy Jupe proceeds to tell Mr. Harthouse that she has come in secret to let him know that Louisa is at her father’s
house and that there is no hope at all that she will ever see him again. Sissy says that she has come on her own out
of love for Louisa. Her self-possession and unwillingness to argue the point throw Mr. Harthouse off guard. Sissy
then asks him to leave Coketown and never return. He tries to protest, but she will have none of it. He hates being
made ridiculous and losing face, but he agrees to Sissy’s demand. He has been vanquished, and he knows it.

Mr. Harthouse asks Sissy her name and relationship to the Gradgrind family. She tells him simply and then leaves.
He writes a note to his brother and calls his servant to pack up. He is oppressed by the sense that he has failed and
by a strange sense of shame.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 3

Summary
Mrs. Sparsit has come down with a violent cold, yet she hurries to Mr. Bounderby to tell him the news. With a
sneezing Mrs. Sparsit in tow, Mr. Bounderby sets off at once to the Gradgrind home, where he confronts Mr.
Gradgrind. Mr. Gradgrind merely says that Mr. Bounderby must have missed his letter. He proceeds to tell his
blustering guest that Louisa is at home and that he knows exactly what has happened. She has come to him for
protection and is now resting.

For once, Mr. Bounderby is silent. Then he turns on Mrs. Sparsit and rebukes her before putting her into a coach and
sending her off, still sneezing.

Mr. Bounderby is still far from happy at the situation, and he does not know quite how to handle Mr. Gradgrind’s
admission that he has made a mistake and that they do not truly understand Louisa. Mr. Gradgrind would like to
repair the situation, and he suggests that Mr. Bounderby allow Louisa to remain at home for a while so that she can
recover with Sissy to help her.

23
Of course, Mr. Bounderby immediately takes offense. He announces that he will not coddle Louisa. There is an
incompatibility between himself and his wife but only because Louisa does not “properly know her husband's merits”
or recognize the honor he has given her by marrying her. He could have had other women. Louisa is not a “born
lady,” and if she is not back at the estate by noon the next day, she can stay at the Gradgrind home permanently.
The next day, when Louisa does not show, Mr. Bounderby has all her possessions sent to her and resumes “a
bachelor life.”

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 4

Summary
Mr. Bounderby focuses his attention on the bank robbery. There are no new developments, but he is still certain that
Stephen Blackpool has done the deed. He prints up broadsheets with Stephen’s description and the accusation, and
Coketown is stunned by them. Slackbridge claims that he expected nothing less, and he twists Stephen’s final words
to the workers into something sinister. A few do not agree with him, but most fall in line with the opinion.

Mr. Bounderby appears at the Gradgrind home along with Tom and Rachael. Louisa readily admits that she visited
Stephen’s room and saw Rachael and the woman there. She verifies Rachael’s story on every point. Rachael is
furious that Stephen’s name has been smeared, and she mistrusts Louisa, at least at first. Yet she knows where
Stephen is, and she has written to him. He should return in two days time to clear his name. Mr. Bounderby accuses
her that the post office has seen no letter to Stephen Blackpool, but Rachael replies that he is living and working
under another name. Mr. Bounderby sees the worst in this.

Rachael pleads with Louisa, saying that there was nothing else Stephen could have done under the circumstances.
She firmly maintains that he will come back. Mr. Bounderby and Tom leave, but Rachael stays to talk more with
Louisa and Sissy. She apologizes for not trusting Louisa. But she cannot think why Stephen would have been near
the bank at all.

Four days go by, and Stephen has not come. Mr. Bounderby sends out messengers who confirm that Stephen
received Rachael’s letter and left at once toward Coketown. Some think that he has fled. More time passes, and still
there is no Stephen.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 5

Summary
Stephen does not come, although many days pass. Sissy goes to sit with Rachael in the evenings to comfort her.
Most of the town has turned against Stephen, believing that he is guilty, and even Rachael feels her mind slipping at
times. Yet she will always trust Stephen. That never fails. Still, she worries that something horrible may have
happened to Stephen. No one can find him. Sissy and Rachael agree to walk out in the country on Sunday morning.

24
As Rachael and Sissy walk back toward the Gradgrind home, they see Mrs. Sparsit pulling Mrs. Pegler toward Mr.
Bounderby’s town home. The neighbors gather to watch and file into the Bounderby dining room. When Mr.
Bounderby enters, he is thoroughly astonished. Mrs. Sparsit proudly presents the mysterious woman she has now
caught, but instead of being thrilled, Mr. Bounderby roars at her with a “Why don’t you mind your own business,
ma’am?”

Mrs. Pegler turns to Mr. Bounderby, calling him “My dear Josiah” and saying that Mrs. Sparsit threatened her into
coming. She has kept her end of the bargain all these years, living quietly and secretly and never telling anyone that
she is his mother. Yet she has watched him and is proud of him and loves him.

Mr. Gradgrind, who has been with Mr. Bounderby, begins to scold Mrs. Pegler for her horrible treatment of her son,
leaving him in the gutter and then with his drunken grandmother. Mrs. Pegler, however, soon sets him straight. Her
mother died before Mr. Bounderby was even born, and she brought her son up with all the advantages she could
possibly give him even after his father died. She had a little store of her own, and now her son gives her more than
enough money every year for her to live comfortably on the condition that she remain out of the picture.

The bystanders are shocked, and Mr. Bounderby has been turning redder and redder. He ushers them all out of his
house. Rachael and Sissy leave, too. Mrs. Pegler remains with her son for the evening. Mr. Gradgrind thinks that
Mrs. Pegler’s true identity will work in Stephen’s favor. Louisa has a horrible suspicion about the robbery, as does
Sissy, and no one knows why Stephen has not returned.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 6

Summary
On Sunday, Sissy and Rachael ride the train out into the country and begin their walk. They find footprints around a
broken fence and then discover Stephen’s hat. They go on and nearly fall down an open mine shaft. They both know
exactly where Stephen is now, and they run in opposite directions looking for help when they receive no response to
their calls. Sissy alerts two men, one of whom is rather drunk. He dips his head in a puddle, comes up sober, and
takes charge of the situation. Sissy sends a message to Louisa as the men rouse the village and gather the
equipment they need.

The process is a long one. The men must build a machine that can lower one of them into the shaft. They must
check the air quality and make sure everything is just right so that there are no further accidents. Louisa, Tom, Mr.
Gradgrind, and Mr. Bounderby arrive on the scene with a surgeon. Finally, the team leader descends into the shaft
and finds Stephen, who is alive but badly injured.

Slowly and carefully, the men lift Stephen out of the Old Hell Shaft, as it is called. He has been able to survive by
eating some crumbs and finding a little water, and he has kept up his spirits by looking at a star. Rachael holds onto
his hand. Stephen comments again about the muddle the world is in. So many people have died from “want and
hunger” or have been killed at their jobs. Yet he still has hope. The star shines upon him yet, and he has prayed the
world will be better someday and that the people will come together.

25
Stephen speaks to Mr. Gradgrind and asks him to clear his name. He tells Mr. Gradgrind to talk to his son. He will
say no more than that, but Tom knows what has happened. As the men carry Stephen away, Rachael continues to
hold his hand. Soon he passes away from his injuries, but he has found God.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 7

Summary
Tom has slipped away from the crowd around the mine shaft. The next day, Mr. Gradgrind informs Mr. Bounderby
that he means to clear Stephen’s name and identify the real thief. Louisa speaks to her father about her suspicions.
She recalls that Tom asked Stephen to step out of the room the night they visited.

Mr. Gradgrind asks how they can find Tom and save him. There is little time. Sissy has already sent Tom to Mr.
Sleary, and the family immediately sets off to find him, moving secretly and in different directions. They travel by
night and try to attract as little attention as possible. They find Sleary’s Horse-Riding circus, and Sissy and Louisa go
into the performance. Mr. Sleary realizes they are present and summons them to him.

Mr. Sleary tells Sissy all about the changes that have happened since she has been gone. He assures Louisa that
her brother is safe and sound. In fact, he is disguised as part of the act. Mr. Gradgrind arrives, and Mr. Sleary sends
Tom to his family. Tom is moody and sulky, but he answers his father’s questions and explains how he pulled off the
robbery. Mr. Gradgrind tells him he must go abroad, and Mr. Sleary agrees to disguise him as a carter and get him to
Liverpool so he can take a ship. Tom lashes out at Louisa, who forgives him and loves him anyway. Then Bitzer
appears and takes Tom into his custody.

Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 8

Summary
Mr. Gradgrind pleads with Bitzer for compassion, but Bitzer has been trained by reason alone. He will act to his own
advantage and self-interest and plans to deliver Tom to Mr. Bounderby at once. Mr. Gradgrind even offers Bitzer
money, but Bitzer has more in mind. He wants position.

Mr. Sleary pretends to withdraw his help but signals otherwise to Sissy. He has a plan to get Tom away using a
dancing horse and a barking dog. His plan works perfectly, and Tom escapes from Bitzer and heads toward
Liverpool. Mr. Gradgrind shows his thanks with plenty of rewards to the circus folk and animals.

Mr. Sleary reveals to Mr. Gradgrind that a while back another dog returned to the circus. It was Merrylegs, and the
animal was looking for Sissy before he died. Mr. Sleary realizes that for the dog to return without Sissy’s father, the
latter must be dead. He does not want to tell Sissy.

26
Chapter Summaries: Book 3, Chapter 9
Summary
Mr. Bounderby sends Mrs. Sparsit to her relation, Lady Scadgers. Mr. Bounderby dies five years later, still trying to
keep up his now-lost pride. Mr. Gradgrind learns about faith, hope, and charity and begins applying them. He clears
Stephen’s name and identifies his own son as the true culprit. Rachael continues to work and to care for a poor,
drunk woman who comes to town now and then. Tom realizes his loneliness and his sister’s love and dies of a fever,
repentant and loving Louisa in return. Sissy marries and teaches her children to wonder and imagine. Louisa
discovers her own imagination and innocence and cares for her Coketown neighbors as best she can, trying to
“beautify their lives” with delight.

Themes: Themes: All Themes

THEMES: HARD TIMES
Charles Dickens’s Hard Times announces one of its major themes right in its title. Nearly all of the characters in this
story are plagued by hard times of some sort, but these can and do look very different based on the characters’
circumstances. Some characters overcome their hard times by changing to meet them. Others fall prey to their
difficulties due to a stubborn resistance.

Hard times can indicate poverty. Stephen and Rachael have very...

(Read more)

THEMES: A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING

Hard Timesencourages readers to reflect on what it means to be a complete human being who can function well in
any circumstances. Mr. Gradgrind raises his children on facts, but in so doing, he neglects other critical aspects of
humanity. Louisa and Tom do not learn how to love or imagine or enjoy themselves. Their whole world is
demonstration and reason, and they are scolded for even such normal curiosity as peeping at a circus show.
When...

(Read more)

THEMES: CLASS CONFLICTS

Hard Timesdoes not shy away from depicting the class conflicts that were intensified in the industrial English cities
symbolized by Coketown. There is a large gap between people like the Gradgrinds and Mr. Bounderby and people
like Stephen, Rachael, and even Sissy. The Gradgrinds largely ignore the lower classes. To them, they are out of
sight and out of mind, not really people perhaps, if they think of them at all. This changes a bit when Sissy...

27
(Read more)

THEMES: EDUCATION
In Hard Times, education is a central theme that Dickens explores to critique the utilitarian approach of the Victorian
era. The novel presents an education system focused solely on facts and rote memorization, devoid of creativity and
imagination. This rigid system is embodied by Mr. Gradgrind, who believes that facts are the only essential elements
of education. Dickens uses this portrayal to highlight the shortcomings of such an education...

(Read more)

THEMES: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens explores the profound impact of the Industrial Revolution on society. The novel is
set in the fictional town of Coketown, a microcosm of industrial England, where Dickens critiques the era's emphasis
on facts, mechanization, and the dehumanization of workers. Through characters like Thomas Gradgrind and
Stephen Blackpool, Dickens highlights the harsh realities and social issues brought about by industrialization.

(Read more)

THEMES: IMAGINATION VS. UTILITARIANISM

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens explores the conflict between imagination and utilitarianism. The novel critiques the
utilitarian philosophy that prioritizes facts and efficiency over creativity and individuality. Dickens uses the characters
and setting to highlight the dehumanizing effects of this philosophy, particularly in the industrial town of Coketown
and the Gradgrind family.

Thomas Gradgrind embodies the utilitarian approach, emphasizing...

(Read more)

Themes: Themes: Hard Times

Charles Dickens’s Hard Times announces one of its major themes right in its title. Nearly all of the characters in this
story are plagued by hard times of some sort, but these can and do look very different based on the characters’
circumstances. Some characters overcome their hard times by changing to meet them. Others fall prey to their
difficulties due to a stubborn resistance.

Hard times can indicate poverty. Stephen and Rachael have very little in the way of money or material possessions.
They work very hard for low wages, and along with the other Hands, they are often oppressed by the owners.
Stephen has the added difficulty of a drunken wife who is unable to make any effort to overcome her addiction and
reach out toward something better. Stephen’s marriage prevents him from being with the woman he truly loves:
Rachael.

Yet Stephen and Rachael are able to overcome their hard times. Stephen courageously sets out to find a new job
after Mr. Bounderby fires him, keeping Rachael and her love firmly in his mind to support him. Even as he lies dying

28
in the mine shaft, Stephen finds hope in prayer and in the vision of a single star that reminds him of how beautiful life
can be. Rachael, too, holds on to love and trust and stands by Stephen to the very end, determined to clear his
name.

Yet hard times are not limited to poverty and oppression. There are other “hard times” that actually run deeper than
mere physical hardship. The Gradgrind family is plagued by these. Mr. Gradgrind prides himself on being “an
eminently practical” man devoted to facts. He raises his children on facts, forbidding any imagination or wonder or
sentiment. As such, his children, especially Louisa and Tom, end up stunted as human beings. Louisa becomes
apathetic toward life and enters into a marriage with a man she does not love because nothing really matters to her.
Tom rebels and falls into gambling and debt, eventually robbing the bank. This family is highly dysfunctional, and Mr.
Gradgrind learns too late that his system has failed and created some of the worst hard times imaginable for himself
and his children. Over time, however, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa learn that there is more to life than facts, and they
overcome their hardships by broadening their perspectives. Tom, unfortunately, dies in exile, although he does
rediscover love in the end.

In a twist on the “hard times” theme, Mr. Bounderby has created a set of nonexistent adversities for himself.
Presenting himself as the ultimate self-made man, Mr. Bounderby tells everyone who will listen about his horrible
childhood. Born in a ditch, abused by all, left to himself, Mr. Bounderby has risen up from the bottom to what he
considers the top. The problem is that it is all a lie. Mr Bounderby’s lies are exposed by Mrs. Pegler, who turns out to
be his loving mother. His “hard times” were not hard at all. In his pride, he just wants people to think they were.

Themes: Themes: A Complete Human Being

Hard Times encourages readers to reflect on what it means to be a complete human being who can function well in
any circumstances. Mr. Gradgrind raises his children on facts, but in so doing, he neglects other critical aspects of
humanity. Louisa and Tom do not learn how to love or imagine or enjoy themselves. Their whole world is
demonstration and reason, and they are scolded for even such normal curiosity as peeping at a circus show. When
Louisa finds herself in the predicament with Mr. Harthouse, she is completely at a loss about what to do or how to
handle herself, and she laments that she has been robbed of training and experiences that would have made her
“wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good respects.” Mr. Gradgrind himself
comes to realize that the head is not enough by itself. The heart is also required to make a full human being.

Sissy Jupe stands as an example of a complete human being. While she fails rather miserably at the facts set before
her in school, she grows into a competent, compassionate, innocent, loving person who knows how to use her head
and her heart to the best effect for herself and others. With her practical common sense, she understands what must
be done at any given point. She hurries to get help for Stephen, keeping her head about her as best she can, when
she realizes that he has fallen down the shaft. She also arranges for Tom to escape to Mr. Sleary. Yet at the same
time, Sissy cares deeply for other people. She loves Louisa even when Louisa is cold to her, and she takes it upon
herself, acting out of her love, to confront Mr. Harthouse and tell him to leave Coketown. Indeed, while Sissy is no
more perfect than any other human being, she strives for a balance of head and heart that makes her complete and
most often happy, even in difficult situations.

29
Themes: Themes: Class Conflicts
Hard Times does not shy away from depicting the class conflicts that were intensified in the industrial English cities
symbolized by Coketown. There is a large gap between people like the Gradgrinds and Mr. Bounderby and people
like Stephen, Rachael, and even Sissy. The Gradgrinds largely ignore the lower classes. To them, they are out of
sight and out of mind, not really people perhaps, if they think of them at all. This changes a bit when Sissy comes to
live with the family, especially since she shows herself to be a kind, compassionate person who is intent upon caring
for others.

People like Mr. Bounderby, however, are highly prejudiced toward the lower classes. He advises Mr. Gradgrind
against accepting Sissy. He is constantly blustering about the Hands wanting more than they deserve, but he is not
willing to provide what they really need. The workers in his mill, like Stephen, work long hours for little pay and
survive on the thinnest of means. Mr. Bounderby has no trouble dismissing them without cause, as he does with
Stephen. This is quite ironic since Mr. Bounderby claims to come from the poorest class himself (although he
actually does not).

It is little wonder, then, that the working-class people begin to unite and organize to pursue better conditions.
However, the narrator suggests that they are going about it in the wrong way. Organizers like Slackbridge are all
talk. They get the people riled up and turn them against each other, especially when some, like Stephen, do not want
trouble.

Stephen, perhaps, has the deepest insight into the class conflicts. Punishing the workers with a heavy hand will not
work, he says. Organizing with anger and causing trouble will not work either. The only thing that will work is for
people to treat each other as human beings, and this is what Stephen prays for as he lies dying in the mine shaft,
that people will come together and strive together to make things better for everyone. This is the only solution to the
class “muddle” that he can see.

Themes: Themes: Education

In Hard Times, education is a central theme that Dickens explores to critique the utilitarian approach of the Victorian
era. The novel presents an education system focused solely on facts and rote memorization, devoid of creativity and
imagination. This rigid system is embodied by Mr. Gradgrind, who believes that facts are the only essential elements
of education. Dickens uses this portrayal to highlight the shortcomings of such an education system and its impact
on individuals and society.

Mr. Gradgrind's philosophy of education is evident from the beginning of the novel. He insists on teaching "nothing
but Facts," viewing children as empty vessels to be filled with information. Gradgrind's approach is illustrated when
he demands a factual definition of a horse from his students. Sissy Jupe, who has real-life experience with horses,
struggles to provide the factual answer Gradgrind desires. In contrast, Bitzer, who has memorized a textbook
definition, recites it without understanding. This scene underscores the difference between factual knowledge and
practical understanding, emphasizing Dickens' critique of an education system that prioritizes memorization over
meaningful learning.
30
 "Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve
incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be
shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth."

Education in Hard Times is also depicted as a tool of power and control. Gradgrind's fact-based education system
serves to maintain the social hierarchy, benefiting those in power while oppressing the working class. By stifling
creativity and individuality, the system ensures that the lower classes remain subservient. This reflects the industrial
society's emphasis on utilitarianism, where education becomes a means of social control rather than empowerment.

The structure of the novel, divided into "The Sowing," "The Reaping," and "The Garnering," further emphasizes the
consequences of this rigid education system. These stages reflect the process of a child's upbringing and the
resulting adult they become. Characters like Tom and Louisa Gradgrind, products of their father's utilitarian
education, lack the imagination and emotional capacity to navigate real-life situations. Their curiosity about the circus
highlights their yearning for an imaginative engagement with the world, which their education has denied them.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of
cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of
childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical
substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.

Through Hard Times, Dickens critiques the utilitarian education system of his time, highlighting its focus on facts at
the expense of imagination and individuality. The novel portrays the negative effects of this system on individuals like
Louisa, who is unable to enjoy or appreciate life due to her emotionally stunted upbringing. Dickens' work serves as
a powerful commentary on the need for a more balanced approach to education, one that nurtures both the intellect
and the imagination.

Themes: Themes: Industrial Revolution

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens explores the profound impact of the Industrial Revolution on society. The novel is
set in the fictional town of Coketown, a microcosm of industrial England, where Dickens critiques the era's emphasis
on facts, mechanization, and the dehumanization of workers. Through characters like Thomas Gradgrind and
Stephen Blackpool, Dickens highlights the harsh realities and social issues brought about by industrialization.

Thomas Gradgrind epitomizes the utilitarian mindset of the Industrial Revolution. He is a man obsessed with facts,
calculations, and efficiency, reflecting the era's focus on productivity and profit. Gradgrind's educational philosophy
dismisses imagination and emotion, emphasizing only measurable outcomes. Dickens introduces Gradgrind as "a
man of realities. A man of fact and calculations," who is always ready "to weigh and measure any parcel of human
nature." This portrayal underscores the reduction of human experience to mere numbers and facts, a critique of the
industrial age's dehumanizing effects.

Coketown, the setting of the novel, represents the grim reality of industrial cities. It is a place characterized by
31
pollution, monotony, and the exploitation of workers. The town's factories and the plight of its workers, referred to as
"Hands," illustrate the social and economic divide between laborers and industrialists. Stephen Blackpool, a factory
worker, embodies the struggles of the working class. Despite his poverty and harsh working conditions, he refuses to
join a union, fearing it will exacerbate tensions between workers and factory owners. Through Stephen's story,
Dickens sheds light on the exploitation and lack of agency faced by industrial workers.

The novel also addresses the limited roles and rights of women during the Industrial Revolution. Louisa Gradgrind,
despite her education, is coerced into an unhappy marriage with the much older Bounderby. This reflects the societal
constraints on women, who had little autonomy and were often used as pawns in economic transactions. Similarly,
Stephen Blackpool's inability to divorce his alcoholic wife highlights the restrictive divorce laws that favored the
wealthy, further illustrating the era's social injustices.

Through Hard Times, Dickens successfully presents the problems of industrial society, critiquing the era's focus on
materialism and the neglect of human values. His portrayal of Coketown and its inhabitants serves as a powerful
commentary on the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, urging readers to consider the social and
moral implications of unchecked industrial progress.

Themes: Themes: Imagination vs.

Utilitarianism
In Hard Times, Charles Dickens explores the conflict between imagination and utilitarianism. The novel critiques the
utilitarian philosophy that prioritizes facts and efficiency over creativity and individuality. Dickens uses the characters
and setting to highlight the dehumanizing effects of this philosophy, particularly in the industrial town of Coketown
and the Gradgrind family.

Thomas Gradgrind embodies the utilitarian approach, emphasizing facts and dismissing imagination. His educational
philosophy is based on "hard data," leaving no room for creativity. This rigid approach leads to "hard times" for his
family, as seen in Louisa's emotionally barren life and Tom's moral failures. Gradgrind's realization of his failure to
instill a moral compass in his children underscores the novel's critique of utilitarianism.

The structure of the novel into three books—"Sowing," "Reaping," and "Garnering"—serves as a metaphor for the
consequences of utilitarianism. Gradgrind "sows" the seeds of this philosophy in his children, leading to disastrous
outcomes in "Reaping," such as Louisa's unhappy marriage and Tom's criminal behavior. "Garnering" reflects the
attempt to mend the damage, highlighting the emotional coldness resulting from their upbringing.

Coketown, the industrial setting, further illustrates the theme. The town's monotonous, soot-covered environment
reflects the utilitarian focus on efficiency over beauty. Factory workers are treated as mere objects for profit,
mirroring the dehumanizing effects of Gradgrind's educational methods. Dickens contrasts this with the natural
passage of time, suggesting that industrialization has replaced the variety and beauty of life with relentless toil.

Sissy Jupe, referred to as "girl number twenty," symbolizes the suppression of individuality under utilitarianism.
Gradgrind's refusal to acknowledge her real name reflects the system's disregard for imagination and personal
32
identity. Dickens uses this to argue for the importance of nurturing creativity and individuality in education and
society.

Characters
THOMAS GRADGRIND
Thomas Gradgrind is a pivotal figure, being an "eminently practical" citizen of Coketown, a retired hardware
merchant, and the founder of an experimental school strictly teaching facts and scientific laws. As a father of five,
including Louisa and Tom, he adheres to a philosophy where facts reign supreme, neglecting imagination and
curiosity. He mistakenly believes himself to be an affectionate father while unknowingly raising children ill-equipped
for life's complexities. His wife, Mrs. Gradgrind, suffers under this regime, becoming dispirited and worn out from the
facts of life.

Despite his rigid adherence to facts, Gradgrind’s encounter with his daughter Louisa's distress leads him to a
transforming realization. Witnessing her suffering, he regrets his unwavering dedication to facts and resolves to
change, embarking on a journey to unite heart and mind, finally recognizing the failure of his earlier methods. This
shift reflects Dickens’ critique of nineteenth-century industry and culture.

LOUISA GRADGRIND BOUNDERBY

Louisa Gradgrind, Thomas Gradgrind’s eldest daughter, is a young woman exhausted by life’s monotony at only
fifteen or sixteen. Trained in the hard truths by Mr. M’Choakumchild's school, she instinctively senses there is more
beyond her father’s facts, yet she struggles to grasp it. Her marriage to the much older Josiah Bounderby, a result of
her father’s mathematical calculations, epitomizes her lack of emotional fulfillment. She marries without love, her
spirit stifled, and she frequently questions, “What does it matter?”

Louisa’s world shifts when Mr. Harthouse enters her life, stirring feelings she cannot comprehend due to her
upbringing. Overwhelmed by his declaration of love, she seeks refuge with her father, unable to handle the situation
alone. With Sissy Jupe’s help, Louisa learns to embrace her humanity, eventually dedicating herself to enabling
others to find joy and meaning in life’s experiences.

SISSY JUPE
Cecilia Jupe, affectionately known as Sissy, embodies compassion and imagination. The daughter of a circus clown,
she was raised amidst love, becoming a young woman who seeks to uncover the best in everyone and aids them in
discovering their potential. Following her father’s disappearance, Sissy is taken in by the Gradgrind family, where
she firmly clings to the belief that her father left for her benefit. Her struggle with facts is constant, but her intrinsic
goodness remains unassailable.

Sissy’s presence significantly impacts the Gradgrind household, offering companionship to Mrs. Gradgrind and
softening the factual curriculum for the younger siblings, particularly Jane. She forges a deep connection with Louisa
33
when she returns home, extends her kindness to others like Rachael, and confronts Mr. Harthouse, showcasing her
blend of simplicity and strength. Her role in advising Louisa and persuading Harthouse to desist from his pursuits
emphasizes her pivotal role in the narrative.

TOM GRADGRIND
Thomas Gradgrind’s son, Tom, often referred to as "the whelp," epitomizes rebellion against his father’s factual
philosophy. An inconsiderate, immature individual, he turns to gambling, accumulating debt to the point of
dependency on his sister Louisa’s support. When she is unable to continue aiding him, Tom’s desperation leads him
to rob Bounderby’s bank, casting suspicion on the innocent Stephen Blackpool.

Despite the opportunity to escape legal repercussions through his family’s intervention, Tom remains ungrateful and
sullen. His journey is one of moral decline, influenced by figures like James Harthouse, yet at his life’s end, he finally
acknowledges Louisa’s enduring love. His narrative arc serves as a critique of a life absent of moral grounding,
steered solely by self-interest and indulgence.

JOSIAH BOUNDERBY
Josiah Bounderby is a prominent industrialist, characterized by bluster and deceit. Proudly claiming to be a self-
made man, he boasts of a challenging upbringing to excuse his harsh demeanor. Yet, his entire narrative crumbles
when his mother, Mrs. Pegler, surfaces, revealing his fabricated past. Bounderby’s treatment of those around him,
including the unjust dismissal of Stephen Blackpool and his impatience with Louisa, reflect his lack of empathy.

Despite his financial success, Bounderby loses his wife, Louisa, and the respect of his peers, leaving him with only
his wealth. His narrative serves as a cautionary tale about the hollowness of pride built on falsehoods and the
isolation it breeds.

MRS. SPARSIT
Mrs. Sparsit, once a woman of aristocratic pretensions, is now a manipulative widow employed by Bounderby as his
housekeeper. She harbors resentment towards Louisa, driven by her own unfulfilled life, and seeks to undermine her
marriage. Her efforts intensify as she eagerly anticipates Louisa's downfall with Mr. Harthouse, yet her schemes
backfire when she unknowingly exposes Bounderby’s mother, Mrs. Pegler, inadvertently unraveling his fabricated
backstory.

Dismissed by Bounderby, she ends up living with her only relative, Lady Scadgers, engaging in petty disputes, her
ambitions thwarted by her own machinations.

JAMES HARTHOUSE
James Harthouse is a disillusioned young man, a political aspirant seeking amusement in Coketown. His interest in
Louisa leads to an attempted seduction, treating her life as a mere game. However, the firm intervention of Sissy
Jupe, who insists on his departure, challenges Harthouse’s cynicism. Despite his embarrassment, he recognizes in
Sissy a force of morality that he cannot contest, leading him to withdraw from the futile pursuit.
34
STEPHEN BLACKPOOL
Stephen Blackpool, a humble factory worker, is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a drunken wife. His love for
Rachael, a fellow worker, remains unrequited due to legal barriers preventing divorce. Stephen’s life is a continual
struggle, marked by integrity and resilience amidst societal challenges. Despite being ostracized by his peers and
unjustly accused of robbery, his spirit remains unbroken.

In a tragic turn, Stephen falls into a mine shaft while trying to return to Coketown to clear his name. Even in his dying
moments, he finds solace in Rachael’s presence, reaffirmed by her unwavering faith in his innocence.

RACHAEL
Rachael represents a beacon of kindness and practicality in Stephen Blackpool’s turbulent life. Her compassion
extends even to Stephen’s wife, whom she prevents from self-harm. Rachael’s steadfast belief in Stephen’s integrity
shines through as she stands by him, offering comfort and companionship during his final moments.

MR. SLEARY
Mr. Sleary, the owner and manager of Sleary’s Circus, is a figure of gruff kindness. His loyalty to Sissy Jupe is
unwavering, offering her refuge when her father abandons her. His cleverness comes to the forefront as he
orchestrates Tom Gradgrind’s escape from Bitzer through a cunning plan involving circus animals. Mr. Sleary
chooses to withhold the presumed death of Sissy’s father from her, preserving her hope and illustrating his innate
compassion.

BITZER
Bitzer is a product of Gradgrind’s fact-driven educational model, serving as a porter and informer for Bounderby. His
pursuit of Tom Gradgrind highlights his commitment to the factual regimen, though ultimately, he fails in
apprehending Tom, outmatched by the ingenuity of Sleary’s circus troupe.

MRS. PEGLER
Mrs. Pegler is Bounderby’s mother, whose existence unveils the truth about his fabricated self-made narrative. Her
revelation challenges Bounderby’s constructed identity, revealing that he had a supportive upbringing contrary to his
claims. Her presence underscores the theme of authenticity versus deception.

MRS. GRADGRIND
Mrs. Gradgrind, the ailing wife of Thomas Gradgrind, struggles under the weight of her husband's ideology. Her life,
marked by complaint and resignation, symbolizes the emotional cost of a life dominated by unyielding adherence to
facts.

35
Analysis
Charles Dickens released Hard Times in serial format in the periodical Household Words through the spring and
summer of 1854. This was a time when England had become highly industrialized, and working conditions had
become almost unbearable in some places, with long hours, low wages, and unsafe conditions that led to injuries
and deaths. Dickens wanted to expose these and other social issues through his novel, in which he employs a
combination of satire and tragedy.

Satire uses exaggeration, ridicule, irony, and even humor to throw a light on social problems and individual vices,
foibles, and foolishness of all kinds. In this novel, Dickens satirizes industrial cities like Coketown by sarcastically
referring to the factories as “fairy palaces” and describing the coils of smoke as serpents. He ridicules mill owners
who take pride in being self-made men. His Mr. Bounderby is an exaggeration of such claims, and herein lies the
satire, but Dickens also points out the unfairness of the owners and their lack of respect for their workers in Mr.
Bounderby’s treatment of the innocent Stephen.

Satire also appears in Dickens’s portrayal of Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy of education. Here the author targets
Utilitarianism. This movement focused on facts and judged just about everything on the basis of its practical
usefulness. The novel reflects such ideas in the focus on facts under Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. M’Choakumchild and on
the insistence by Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind that horses do not belong on wallpaper nor flowers on carpet
because they do not reflect reality and serve no useful purpose. There is exaggeration in this, of course, but that is
part of the satire. Dickens’s critique of the ideas is clear.

The novel’s tragedy appears in the plight of the workers, especially Stephen, Rachael, and Rachael’s younger sister.
Dickens exposes the powerlessness of the workers. Stephen has no recourse when Mr. Bounderby fires him. There
is nowhere he can turn for help. In fact, his name is so blackened that he must change it to find work anywhere.
Rachael’s younger sister appears to have died due to poor working conditions. Yet the way the workers are
attempting to change their lot is also subject to the author’s criticism. The orator Slackbridge is an outsider who
claims to want to unite the workers but actually sows division among them as he ridicules Stephen’s common-sense
caution.

Stephen, in fact, presents the author’s ideas about how to solve at least some, if not most, of the social issues of the
day. If only people would treat each other with kindness and respect, as real human beings, and if they would come
together and try to understand each other, then perhaps things would change for the better. Stephen becomes part
of the tragedy, but he leaves readers plenty of ideas for reflection.

Dickens uses a great deal of symbolism throughout Hard Times as he builds the satire and tragedy of his plot and
characters. The novel is divided into three sections, each of which has a symbolic title. The first section, “Sowing,”
lays the foundations of satire and tragedy up through the marriage of Louisa and Mr. Bounderby. This section plants
the metaphoric seeds that are already starting to bloom. The Gradgrind children’s upbringing in facts alone has
shaped their characters negatively. Tom is selfish and sulky. Louisa is apathetic and almost despairing. Stephen and
Rachael are struggling in their situations. The next section is “Reaping,” and the characters now reap what they have
sown and what has been sown for them. Louisa is miserable in her marriage and unable to deal with Mr.
Harthouse’s advances. Tom is deeply in debt and desperate. Mr. Bounderby fires Stephen for causing the trouble
the latter was trying to prevent. In the final section, “Garnering,” the full consequences of the characters’

36
personalities and actions are harvested and threshed. Many things are set to right in the process. Mr. Gradgrind
realizes his error. Mr. Bounderby’s lies are exposed. Stephen is cleared even though he loses his life. Louisa
discovers a life beyond and better than what she has known.

Dickens also makes good use of symbolism in his characters’ names, which often suggest some trait or quality of the
individual. Mr. Gradgrind’s name, for instance, suggests the “grind” that his educational system and philosophy
become for his children and for himself. These suck the interest out of life by removing all imagination and
sentiment. Mr. Bounderby’s name hints that he wants to leave behind all boundaries to become the man he desires
to be. Yet he does so by bounding over morality and into lies. Mrs. Sparsit is “sparse” in her personality. She is bitter
and tight, lacking in compassion and generosity. Stephen Blackpool presents a depth of character that may suggest
a still pool, yet his situation becomes “black” through no fault of his own. James Harthouse springs like a hart, or
deer, from place to place, house to house. He can never settle at anything.

Finally, Hard Times is a study in contrasts. Dickens deliberately sets up contrasts between people to emphasize
both their differences and, eventually, their shared humanity. Louisa and Sissy, for instance, are a prime example of
this study in contrasts. Louisa has been raised on facts her whole life, and it has left her half of a human being in
many ways. She is not capable of interacting with people on the level of the heart or of imagining any way to do so.
Sissy, on the other hand, displays a proper balance of heart and head. While she does not take to facts alone, she
shows a common-sense approach to life that she combines with a deep compassion and love. Sissy is determined
to find the best in people. Louisa often sees the worst. Other sharp contrasts in the novel occur between Mr.
Bounderby and Stephen (who look at the world and its troubles from very different perspectives), Mrs. Sparsit and
Mrs. Pegler (who exhibit completely different attitudes toward Mr. Bounderby), Rachael and Stephen’s wife (who
reveal two highly distinct fates of working women), and Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Sleary (who value decidedly different
aspects of humanity). Yet all of these individuals are fully human with positive and negative qualities that make them
characters whom Dickens intends to set up as mirrors for his readers and his own society.

Character and Theme Quotes: Essential

Quotes by Character: Louisa Gradgrind
Bounderby
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 1: BOOK 1, CHAPTER 3
“In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!” said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; “What
do you do here?”

“Wanted to see what it was like,” returned Louisa shortly.

“What it was like?”

“Yes, father.”

There was an air of jaded sullenness in both, and particularly in the girl: yet, struggling through the
dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a
37
 starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression. Not with the
brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something
painful in them, analogous to the changes in a blind face groping its way.

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but no distant day would seem to become a woman all at
once. Her father thought so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have been self-willed (he
thought in his eminently practical way), but for her bringing-up.

SUMMARY
Louisa and her brother, Thomas, were raised by her father, Mr. Gradgrind, according to the strict tenants of his
philosophy of pragmatism, rationality, and realism. All he wanted was facts, with no room for fancy or imagination.
Louisa, however, resisted this upbringing. One day, when accompanied by her equally incorrigible brother Thomas,
they stopped to peek through a fence at a circus, where Sissy Jupe’s father worked as a clown. Coming upon them
as he returned home, Mr. Gradgrind was shocked that they would stoop to an interest in so fanciful thing as a circus.
Louisa, a young girl on the verge of womanhood, stood her ground against her father’s ire. The struggle between her
father’s teachings and her own personality is evident in her “jaded sullenness.” She resents the focus on “facts” at
the expense of enjoyment and imagination. She is indeed self-willed, despite her father’s beliefs to the contrary. This
is an early hint at the inner struggle Louisa will face as a woman, in her marriage and in her relationships with her
brother and her father.

ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 2: BOOK 2, CHAPTER 6

For the first time in her life, Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the
first time in her life, she was face to face with anything like individuality in connexion with them. She
knew of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number
of them would produce, in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their
nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects
than of these toiling men and women.

SUMMARY
Stephen Blackpool, an employee at the local mill, has stood up against the mill owners yet will not join the union. He
believes it is wrong to make demands of the owners and against the workers’ common good. Slackbridge, the union
organizer, warns Blackpool to join or else face ostracism. Blackpool, not to be bullied by either side, walks out of the
union hall and returns to his home. He defends his actions to Bounderby, who criticizes him for refusing to speak
against his fellow workers. Later, Louisa comes to his residence to speak to him. She remarks to herself that this is
the first time she has actually seen a worker’s daily life and abode. Before, the particulars of others’ circumstances
were just facts, such as her father taught her to believe. She at last sees the workers as individuals, with lost hopes
and dreams like her own. Louisa regrets how much she has lost by not being aware of others whose conditions are
different from her own.

ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 3: BOOK 3, CHAPTER 1

“But,” said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesitation, as well as with a wretched sense of helplessness,
“if I see reason to mistrust myself for the past, Louisa, I should mistrust myself for the present and the
future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far from feeling convinced now, however differently I
might have felt only this time yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you repose in me; that I know how to
respond to the appeal you have come home to make to me; that I have the right instinct—supposing it
38
 for the moment to be some quality of that nature—how to help you, and to set you right, my child.”

SUMMARY
Louisa has come to the end of her marriage to Josiah Bounderby, having never loved him but married him out of
duty to her father. James Harthouse, who has been courting her despite her being married, has encouraged her to
run away from her husband and elope with him. Louisa, however, has a highly developed sense of morality, and
such an action would be unconscionable to her. Instead, she goes to her father and confronts him (despite the fact
that she insists she is condemning him). Mr. Gradgrind, shattered by the realization of the full extent of his
daughter’s unhappiness, rejects his philosophy of rationalism by which he raised her and her siblings. He sees now
the great harm such teaching has done to her, forcing her into an unhappy marriage and into a situation that would
destroy her character. Though Louisa appeals to her father, Mr. Gradgrind now feels himself unqualified to counsel
her. He feels that he has destroyed her trust in him, and thus has failed as a father.

ANALYSIS OF ESSENTIAL PASSAGES

As a Dickensian heroine, Louisa Gradgrind Bounderby is contrary to the normal characterization that Dickens uses
for the Victorian young woman. From Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities to Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop,
Dickens often portrays his female characters as the innocent, frail, meek depiction that was often used in nineteenth-
century literature. Louisa, however, shows an astonishing strength, refusing to bow down to any other male
character, with the exception of agreeing to marry Bounderby according to her father’s wishes. In general she stands
alone, against her father, her husband, inequality, even against morality.

Despite being raised to eschew imagination, Louisa early shows her fascination with the less-than-serious aspects of
her environment. Symbolically, she reveals an interest in the circus, a highly fanciful enterprise that her father
despises and rejects. When she is caught peeking through the fence, her father remonstrates at this waste of time.
His eventual adoption of Sissy Jupe, the daughter of one of the circus performers, shows his desire to “educate” the
youth of Britain away from a life of amusement to one of “facts” and rational thought. Sissy, however, joins with
Louisa and replaces her somewhat when Louisa yields to marrying Bounderby.

As the circus was a crack in the world that her father created for her, Louisa’s introduction to the world of the working
class also shows the inadequacy of her upbringing. She sees that facts alone do not fully enlighten the welfare of the
people, embodied in Stephen Blackpool. The sheltered existence first of her father and now of her husband opens
Louisa’s eyes to the reality of a life not her own.

Louisa’s introduction to the attempted seduction by James Harthouse also reveals to her the depths of her own
unhappiness and the possibility of happiness that has been denied her. It underscores her vulnerability to the
manipulations of others, specifically men, into a life that is simply different from the sorrow in which she finds herself.
Yet through her strength of character, she rejects Harthouse and confronts her father.

Louisa’s ability to verbalize the full extent of the damage that her father’s teaching has done to her life enables Mr.
Gradgrind himself to come to an understanding of how harmful his philosophy has been. Through Louisa, he sees
that there are facts that are outside his control, such as the fact that his daughter was forced into an unhappy
marriage simply because her father saw it as financially and socially desirable, which was often the lot of young
women of the period. As the mill workers stand up to the unjust conditions of their workplace, Louisa Gradgrind

39
Bounderby rebels against the unjust conditions of women, particularly their financial and social reliance on men, and
their forced inability to provide for themselves or to make their own choices.

Louisa Gradgrind Bounderby stands out in the works of Dickens as an unusual portrayal of a strong and
independent woman, one who does not sink to the level of vindictiveness as does Estella in Great Expectations.
With her wisdom and her strength, she serves as the moral center of Hard Times.

Character and Theme Quotes: Essential

Quotes by Theme: Rationalism
ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 1: BOOK 1, CHAPTER 1
Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.
Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals
upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my
own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, sir!

SUMMARY
Thomas Gradgrind operates a school founded on the philosophy of rationalism. Only that which is provable by
observation and personal experience is real. The realms of imagination and faith are worthless and must be avoided.
Personal preference counts for nothing. Only the utility of a thing or concept gives it value. Gradgrind is
demonstrating to Mr. Bounderby the efficacy of his school’s philosophy by having an academic presentation. Sissy
Jupe bears the brunt of his insistence on facts. While her explanations concerning horses and carpets run into the
realms of fancy and personal preference, Gradgrind repeatedly condemns her and humiliates her in front of the
school for doing so. Gradgrind states that not only does he utilize this philosophy in the education of his students,
but he also makes it the foundation for the rearing of his own children. This admission will have significant
consequences in the outcome of the story, especially concerning his daughter, Louisa.

ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 2: BOOK 2, CHAPTER 12

“How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of
conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have
you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great
wilderness here!”

She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom.

“If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in which my whole life sinks. I did
not mean to say this; but, father, you remember the last time we conversed in this room?”

He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was with difficulty he answered, “Yes,
Louisa.”

“What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my lips then, if you had given me a moment’s help.
I don’t reproach you, father. What you have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself;
40
 but O! if you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, what a much better and much
happier creature I should have been this day!”

On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his hand and groaned aloud.

“Father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what even I feared while I strove against it
—as it has been my task from infancy to strive against every natural prompting that has arisen in my
heart; if you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, affections, weaknesses capable
of being cherished into strength, defying all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to
his arithmetic than his Creator is,—would you have given me to the husband whom I am now sure that I
hate?”

He said, “No. No, my poor child.”

SUMMARY
Louisa has developed a close relationship with James Harthouse, who is in fact trying to seduce her. Having met her
in the woods, James tries to persuade her to leave her husband and elope with him. Leaving her there in the woods,
he departs. Louisa, however, goes to visit her father. She confronts him with the manner in which he raised her.
Although she insists that she is not reproaching him for doing wrong, she is in fact doing just that. She has found
herself involved in a matter of the heart, which she is unfamiliar with because of the rationalism instilled in her by her
father’s teaching. She has given herself to a loveless marriage to a man she now realizes she hates, due to her
father’s teaching. She has no happiness or fulfillment in life, due to her father’s teaching. Louisa wishes she had
never been born, or at least been subject to parental neglect, than to have been raised in such a manner. The
insistence on “nothing but facts” has ruined her emotionally, depriving her of all joy.

ESSENTIAL PASSAGE 3: BOOK 3, CHAPTER 9

Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, sitting thoughtful in his own room.
How much of futurity did he see? Did he see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto
inflexible theories to appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope,
and Charity; and no longer trying to grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of
himself, therefore much despised by his late political associates? Did he see them, in the era of its
being quite settled that the national dustmen have only to do with one another, and owe no duty to an
abstraction called a People, “taunting the honorable gentleman” with this and with that and with what
not, five nights a-week, until the small hours of the mornings? Probably he had that much fore-
knowledge, knowing his men.

SUMMARY
With the final separation between Louisa and Mr. Bounderby, Mr. Gradgrind has come to a final rejection of the
rationalism that had been the foundation of his life and career. In a passage that Dickens uses to inform the reader of
the future course of the lives of the characters, Mr. Gradgrind is shown in his new role of humanitarian. He sees
himself as a “white-haired decrepit man,” using his “inflexible” theories in the service of mankind through “Faith,
Hope, and Charity,” three virtues that never fit into the rationalism of his previous thought. Instead of driving them out
of his industry, he brings them in to enhance the lives of the people. His future political career as one of the “national
dustmen” of Parliament is shown to be the opposite of what that institute was rapidly (in Dickens’s opinion)
becoming: an organization run by those more interested in their own careers than in the welfare of the people. As
Bounderby was indifferent to the plight of his workers, so the government is indifferent to the plight of the common
citizen. Thus Mr. Gradgrind is shown to be thoroughly redeemed in the end, having the heart that Louisa accused

41
him of lacking.

ANALYSIS OF ESSENTIAL PASSAGES

Rationalism arose in the nineteenth century in part as a reaction against the emotionalism of the Romantic
movement. The coming emphasis on what is visible and provable presaged the conflict between science and religion
that would arise with Darwin’s theory of evolution, for example. Personal beliefs, faith, art, and literature would all be
affected and influenced by the rise of the empirical.

Dickens deals with this struggle through the characters of Thomas Gradgrind and his daughter, Louisa. Gradgrind
believes in a world of “Facts,” only that which is provable and evident. The world of imagination, emotions, and faith
is to be routed out in his educational philosophy, of which Louisa is a product. The only things that exist are those
that can be proved by experimentation or direct observation. The world of emotions, as exhibited by Louisa, is
harmful to the full development of the human mind, according to Gradgrind. As such, his anger at her stopping to
watch the circus performers is directed not so much at her misbehavior but in her wasting time in such frivolous and
fanciful ways. She is quickly brought back into line and forced to marry Mr. Bounderby.

As for the rationalistic view of marriage, Louisa marries Bounderby as a social and financial duty in alignment with
her father’s wishes. The fact that she does not love her husband is immaterial, since love is not based on “Fact.” If
science had advanced as much as it has at present, Gradgrind would have presented the belief that “love” is merely
a chemical reaction in the brain, rather than a product of the heart. Thus Louisa marries not knowing the importance
of such “irrational” matters as love and respect in a marriage.

It is only in her relationship with James Harthouse that Louisa begins to let her emotions have more of an effect on
her actions. In a rationalistic frame of mind, a marriage is an artificial bow to the dictates of social mores but can
easily be broken should a more “effective” relationship arise. Thus it is not fear of adultery or divorce that causes
Louisa to break off her relationship with Harthouse, but the sudden realization that the “heart has its reasons of
which reason knows nothing.” Her focus becomes not marriage and romance per se, but the fulfillment of life in joy
and happiness.

Through Louisa’s revelation, Thomas Gradgrind also comes to the realization of the inability of rationalism to bring
meaning to an individual life. People are emotional beings. Just as the mill workers struggle to improve their working
conditions, so the average human being struggles to improve their daily existence beyond the mere acquisition of
money as a means to survival. Gradgrind comes to a full understanding of the damage such a philosophy has on an
individual. In a reaction against the burgeoning science that states that man is just another animal, Gradgrind
believes at last that to be human is to be much more than to survive. Art, music, and friendship are not necessary for
survival; they are the reason for surviving at all.

Quotes in Context: “What I Want Is, Facts”

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.
Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals

42
 upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my
own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!

This quotation from Charles Dickens’ Hard Times encapsulates Thomas Gradgrind's philosophy of education, one
that reduces human experience to mere data and dismisses imagination or emotion as frivolous. Gradgrind's
insistence on "Facts" reflects the rigid utilitarianism of the Victorian era, where practicality and measurable outcomes
reigned supreme. His approach seeks to "root out" anything other than empirical data, fundamentally ignoring the
complexities of human emotion and creativity. Dickens uses Gradgrind’s character to critique the era's mechanistic
view of both education and society at large. The result of such an education is seen in the emotionally stunted and
morally questionable lives of his pupils, except for Sissy Jupe, who resists this indoctrination. Through this critique,
Dickens highlights the necessity of balancing fact with intuition and empathy in shaping well-rounded individuals.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book I, Chapters 1-2
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Chapter 1 is entitled “The One Thing Needful.” What is that one thing?

2. What does Gradgrind want to “plant” and what does he want to “root out” of his pupils?

3. To whom does Gradgrind say “Sissy is not a name…Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.”

4. What gesture does Bitzer make once he finishes his answer?

5. What direct comment does the narrator permit himself about the teacher M’Choakumchild?

6. The “government officer” is compared to what kind of professional athlete?

7. Instead of patterned china and wallpaper and flowery carpets, with what does the government officer urge the
children to decorate their homes?

8. Which character is said to have been, with 140 others, “turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same
principles, like so many pianoforte legs”?

9. How does the girl Sissy’s physical appearance differ from the boy Bitzer’s?

10. Which “calling” (occupation) does Gradgrind not wish mentioned in his classroom?

43
ANSWERS
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.

2. Again, “Facts” are what Gradgrind wishes to plant in the minds of the children; to be rooted out is any suggestion
of “Fancy,” or imagination.

3. The remark is addressed to Cecilia (Sissy) Jupe.

4. Bitzer knuckles his forehead. This is a traditional lower class gesture, indicating deference to a social superior.

5. “Ah, rather overdone, M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught
much more!”

6. The government officer is compared to a boxer, “ready to fight all England.”

7. The government officer says that for purposes of decoration, the children must only use “combinations and
modifications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration.” These
figures are, presumably, painted squares and triangles or other geometrical figures.

8. M’Choakumchild is so described. Dickens is saying that the schoolmaster’s own education has been a mechanical
process, like the manufacture of pianoforte (a type of piano) legs. His extensive training has left him and all those
subjected to it identical to one another, lacking any individual traits.

9. Sissy has dark hair and eyes, and her complexion glows in the light of the sun; Bitzer, by contrast, is pale all over
and looks as though “if he were cut, he would bleed white.”

10. Gradgrind does not wish to hear anything about Sissy Jupe’s father’s occupation as a circus performer.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book I, Chapters 3-4
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”?

44
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?

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.

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.”

45
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:
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?

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.

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

46
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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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”?

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.

47
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.

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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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?

48
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.

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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

49
6. Which of the stories Sissy read her father did he seem particularly to enjoy?

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.

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.”

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book I, Chapters 10-12
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Who are the “Hands” of Coketown?

50
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?”

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.

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.

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

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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.”

52
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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book I, Chapters 14-15
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Of what aspects of Sissy’s performance in school does Mr. Gradgrind complain?

2. What does Dickens mean when he writes that Gradgrind has become “one of the respected members for ounce
weights and measure, one of the deaf honorable gentlemen, dumb honorable gentlemen, blind honorable
gentlemen, dead honorable gentlemen, to every other consideration”?

3. When does Louisa give her father the same look as the night she was found peeping at the circus?

4. When Tom says to his sister, “It would do me a great deal of good if you were to make up your mind to I know
what, Loo. It would be a splendid thing for me. It would be uncommonly jolly!” what is he alluding to?

5. Why is Gradgrind’s study “quite a blue chamber”?

6. What does Louisa say when her father announces that she has been the subject of a proposal of marriage?

7. Mr. Gradgrind reminds Louisa that much depends on the sense in which a certain expression is used. What is that
expression?

8. What is it, in the course of his conversation with his daughter, that Mr. Gradgrind takes satisfaction in knowing?

9. What does Louisa look at for a long time as she considers what to say to her father?

10. What is Louisa’s new attitude to Sissy, from the moment she senses her response to her upcoming marriage?

53
ANSWERS
1. Mr. Gradgrind is “greatly disappointed” by Sissy’s deficiency in acquiring facts and her limited acquaintance with
figures.

2. Dickens means that Gradgrind has been elected to Parliament, where he is among those who speak for the
interests of the manufacturers.

3. Louisa looks at her father this way when he exclaims, “My dear Louisa, you are a woman!”

4. Tom is alluding to his sister marrying Bounderby.

5. The room is blue because Gradgrind collects the famous series of “blue books,” so called because of their blue
covers, issued by the government and containing statistical information on such matters as population, wages, and
working condition in factories and mines. The information in the blue books was used by many different observers
and critics to advance many different arguments and come to many different conclusions.

6. Louisa keeps silent when she hears this; her father has to repeat what he has said, and even then she makes no
reply other than to say she wishes to hear her father state the proposal to her. Her apparent composure momentarily
flusters her father.

7. The expression Gradgrind refers to is “love.”

8. Mr. Gradgrind takes satisfaction in knowing that his daughter does not come to the consideration of the question
of marriage with any of “the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that belong to so many young women.”

9. Louisa looks out her father’s study window at the factory chimneys of Coketown.

10. Louisa becomes from that moment proud, cold, and impassive toward Sissy, “changed to her altogether.”

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

54
4. What sort of factual knowledge do the wedding guests bring to the Gradgrind-Bounderby wedding feast?

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.”

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.”

55
Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:
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?

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.”

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.

56
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.”

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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

ANSWERS
57
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.

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

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book II, Chapter 6
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. How does the strange old woman come to be in Rachael’s company?

2. What do Stephen, Rachael, and the old woman have for their tea, and how does the meal fulfill the standard
testimony of the Coketown magnates that “these people lived like princes, Sir”?

3. What name does the old lady give herself and what does she say about her son?

4. Early on in her visit, what potentially hurtful question does Louisa ask Stephen?

5. Louisa learns that her husband’s firing of Stephen will have what effect upon Stephen’s reputation?

6. What does Dickens say about the manner in which Stephen accepts Louisa’s offer of help?

7. What nervous action does Tom perform as he makes his proposal to Stephen?
58
8. Where do Rachael and Stephen take the old lady shortly after the visitors leave?

9. What feeling comes over Stephen as he waits outside Bounderby’s bank?

10. What time of day is it when Stephen leaves Coketown?

ANSWERS
1. The old lady is in Coketown on her mysterious annual pilgrimage. Coming across Rachael on the street outside
Bounderby’s home, she falls to talking with her—much as once before she had done with Stephen.

2. The tea they consume consists of real tea, lump sugar, a new loaf of bread from a nearby shop, and fresh butter.
Dickens suggests that the Coketown magnates would point to these items as evidence of the well-being, or perhaps
the profligacy, of their employees.

3. The old lady says her name is Mrs. Pegler and that the son she once had she has since lost. (Stephen and
Rachael assume she means he is dead.)

4. Louisa asks Stephen if Rachael is his wife.

5. Louisa learns that, once fired by one employer, Stephen will become known to all the others as a “troublesome,”
and presumably unemployable, man.

6. Dickens observes that Stephen’s acceptance of Louisa’s gift had a “grace in it that Lord Chesterfield could not
have taught his son in a century.” Chesterfield, the eighteenth-century author of Letters to his Son, was a frequent
target of Dickens’ satire.

7. Tom twists and screws his finger in a buttonhole of Stephen’s coat.

8. Stephen and Rachael accompany the old lady to the Traveler’s Coffee House, an inn near the railway station
where she will stay before returning to the country by next morning’s train.

9. Outside the bank, Stephen has an uncomfortable sensation of “being for the first time a disreputable character.”

10. Stephen leaves Coketown at dawn.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

Book II, Chapters 7-8

59
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?

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.

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.
60
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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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.”

61
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.

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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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?

62
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!”

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.”

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

63
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.

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.”

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Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:
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?

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.

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.”

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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.”

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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.

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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.

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.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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.”

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 litterbearers are moving in the direction of the star that has shone down on
him for so long as he lay in the shaft.

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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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?

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.

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.”

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

Short-Answer Quizzes: Short-Answer Quizzes:

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?

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.

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.

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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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