Hard Times

“I don’t know of what—of everything, I think.”

The primary victims of Gradgrind’s mistaken beliefs are his eldest children, Louisa and Tom. They react very differently to their father’s lessons. Louisa becomes increasingly detached and alienated from the world, exhausted with the relentless pragmatism of her father’s ideology until she views herself as a joyless husk of a person. The whimsy and fanciful imagination of a young girl is ground into a miserable wreck, showing the destructive nature of the ideology in the same way that Coketown’s factories show the ecologically destructive nature of industrialization. In this quote, she explains to her father what she’s tired of.

“It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.”

Life in industrialized Coketown is a monotonous drudge for its working-class inhabitants. The quality of life is echoed in the syntax of the sentence, as the author uses repeated phrases and words to emphasize the repetitive nature of the endless grind. The sentence, like the working day, stretches on and on without a break, providing a literary representation of what it describes.

“Yet there was a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another.”

Men like Bounderby mock and deride the people who work in the circus, but they demonstrate a better grasp of how to behave morally than the wealthy characters do. The people of the circus are united in a community. They support one another and offer sincere empathy to people in need. In contrast, men like Bounderby and Gradgrind believe that their brutally utilitarian worldview justifies their ill-treatment of other people. Despite their frequent claims to the contrary, they’re selfish, cruel, and uncaring. The contrast between them and those who work in the circus illustrates that money doesn’t make a person better in a moral sense.

“I thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine.”

Sissy’s teacher criticizes her for giving an incorrect answer. However, Sissy’s response exhibits a depth of understanding that suggests she’s more intelligent than the people who try to teach her lessons. Sissy doesn’t know the technically correct answer to the question; instead, she provides a thorough diagnosis of the relationship between capital and happiness, even if she lacks the academic vocabulary her teachers demand. In simple terms, she disproves the idea that a prosperous nation is a morally sound nation by demonstrating that the existence of wealthy individuals comes at the expense of the working people they exploit. She instinctively understands the unfairness of the world yet is criticized for trying to voice this supposedly incorrect opinion, particularly in one of the schools owned by the wealthy industrialists she’s criticizing.

“Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he the power to stir.”

Blackpool wakes up in the night and sees his wife about to accidentally kill herself by swallowing a bottle of medicine, thinking that it’s actually alcohol. In this moment, Blackpool is on the cusp of getting everything he wants. He can put his wife in the past and marry Rachael—but only if he doesn’t intervene. Blackpool doesn’t move, but he hates his inaction. To him, inaction in preventing the tragedy is almost as bad as causing the tragedy through action. He considers himself morally complicit in what might happen, as he didn’t intervene. Fortunately, Rachael wakes and intervenes. Blackpool is left with the terrible knowledge that he would have allowed his wife to die.

“You won’t forget how fond you are of me?”

Louisa considers herself devoid of emotions due to how she was raised. Despite her belief that she can’t truly feel anything, her brother is able to emotionally manipulate her. In this passage, his manipulation subtly proves that Louisa is wrong, providing evidence that she has the emotions necessary to be fond of her brother.

“I assure you I attach not the least importance to any opinions.”

Harthouse doesn’t recognize his level of wealth and privilege. He believes that his lack of any principle or opinion on any subject makes him completely above morality. As he doesn’t care about anything, he believes, he can’t be wrong. He’s able to believe this only because he has the money and authority to do so. His wealth provides him with the opportunity to not care, a privilege that isn’t extended to the struggling factory workers. Harthouse is the logical conclusion of Gradgrind’s utilitarian worldview, in which he focuses purely on self-interested facts and insists that he’s free from any responsibility or commitment.

“It was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, should still be inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of groveling sensualities.”

Harthouse is surprised that someone could grow up in relative luxury, coached in Gradgrind’s practical philosophy, and yet still emerge on the other side as what Harthouse considers an amoral or foolish person. This point of view starkly contrasts with everything that happens in the novel. All the characters who receive education in Gradgrind’s ideas—Tom, Louisa, Bitzer—thoroughly rebuke Gradgrind’s ideology, and the person who fails to internalize the ideas (Sissy) is the novel’s most emotionally mature character. That Harthouse can’t grasp this reveals the depths of his naivety.

“What have these pests of the earth been doing to you?”

Bounderby tries to recruit Blackpool to his side in his battle with the workers’ union. He refers to the workers as “pests,” suggesting that they’ve been deliberately and unfairly targeting Blackpool. Bounderby implies that he’d never do such a thing. However, Bounderby’s self-interest is clear; he doesn’t want to help Blackpool; his only goal is to gain another weapon for his battle against the union. He doesn’t empathize with Blackpool as a person because he doesn’t consider poor people worthy of his empathy.

“For the first time in her life, Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands.”

The Gradgrind family consider themselves residents of Coketown, but the fact that Louisa has never entered a working-class home reveals that the city isn’t the same for everyone. The rich live separate lives, in larger and more lavish homes, while the poor are relegated to the cramped, polluted slums. Coketown has both types of homes, but the city is a stratified physical space where wealth separates the rich from the poor in a very literal sense.

“Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, crept out of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but impenitently spurning himself, and no less hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the good in the world.”

Once alone, Tom feels free to unleash his emotions. He’s wrought with guilt after robbing the bank and framing Blackpool. However, he has been raised by his father to push his emotions to the side and focus only on self-interest and facts. Guilt doesn’t benefit Tom, so—according to his father’s beliefs—he must ignore it. In public, Tom performs the role of someone who has been raised to follow his father’s beliefs. In private, he allows himself to reveal how these beliefs have left him riddled with anxieties and shame.

“Louisa had relinquished the hand: had thought that her sister’s was a better and brighter face than hers had ever been […].”

Looking at her younger sister, Louisa feels as though she’s staring at a version of herself. Her sister isn’t as inured with her father’s beliefs, meaning that Sissy’s helping hand in raising the girl gave her an outlet for her emotions and sentimentality that Louisa never had. Louisa looks at her younger sister with longing and envy, seeing the childhood she might have had were it not for her father.

“Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, she struck into a side-path […].”

Louisa is as indifferent to the rain as she is to everything else in her life. Even though the rain soaks her clothes and leaves her with a terrible sickness, she doesn’t care. She’s completely numb to the world around her, to the point that she doesn’t care about her own health. Louisa’s physical indifference is an extension of her emotional indifference.

“I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.”

Louisa’s emotional confrontation with her father leads to the admission that she wishes she’d never been born. The words are a complete shock to Gradgrind, who’s forced to reckon with the terrible effect his ideas have had on his daughter’s life. Louisa’s words cut through his bluster and arrogance—and initiate his change in character, providing him with the motivation he needs to change his ways.

“The ground on which I stand has ceased to be solid under my feet.”

Gradgrind’s confrontation with his daughter Louisa is a direct threat to everything he held true. He spent so long sharing his ideology with people—even founding a school to teach children to follow in his footsteps—that the revelation forces him to question everything else. His utilitarian philosophy was one of the few foundations of his existence; to abandon this ideology, he must become someone else entirely.

“I am not a moral sort of fellow.”

Even when Harthouse is confronted with his immoral behavior, he isn’t compelled to take responsibility for his actions. He’s accused of trying to initiate an affair with a married woman and warned to leave the city before he brings about a scandal. Harthouse doesn’t care. He has the wealth necessary to travel to Egypt on a whim and shrugs off his bad behavior by making a statement that he’s amoral by nature. Harthouse’s money insulates him from scandal, morality, and responsibility in a way that it doesn’t for a poor man like Blackpool.

“I am going to finish this business according to my own opinions.”

While Gradgrind is confronted with his mistakes and commits to change, Bounderby isn’t as open-minded. His bluster and narcissism endure, even when he’s told that his wife no longer loves him. He refuses to do anything that doesn’t align with his “own opinions,” as he can’t imagine a world in which he’s not the central figure and in which he’s not always right. Even as he commits to his own delusion, however, his world is beginning to fall apart.

“‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said her husband, entering with a cool nod [...].”

After their separation, Bounderby drops any pretense of being a loving husband. His words are carefully calculated to remind Louisa that she has betrayed him. He refers to her as Mrs. Bounderby, linguistically attaching her to him and his name as though she were still his property. This is accompanied by a cool nod to show emotional indifference. In doing so, Bounderby has revealed his hypocrisy. His love for utilitarianism and pragmatism are put aside as he reveals his emotional weakness. Louisa hurt him, and he wants to hurt her in return, even if doing so has no material benefit for him.

“If there hadn’t been over-officiousness [a mistake] wouldn’t have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all times […].”

The narrative reveals that Bounderby lied about his past when his mother tells the other characters that he wasn’t raised by his grandmother. In responding to this revelation, Bounderby continues to lie. He insists that he hates over-officiousness, yet he’s one of the novel’s most officious characters. He inserts himself and his authority into every available space, even when he isn’t wanted. At all times, Bounderby continues to construct his own form of mythology, describing his character as he wants other people to perceive it even when this goes against all available evidence.

“The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through humility, and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his Redeemer’s rest.”

Although Blackpool is rescued from the mine, he’s mortally wounded. In his final moments, he stares up at the sky and sees a star. The star prompts him to reflect on religion and the existence of God. The star and God are external, objective forces that are far above humanity. Only in death can Blackpool receive equal treatment; the star shines down on him as it does on everyone else, while he’s welcomed into the afterlife and finally allowed to rest after a lifetime of toil. For poor men like Blackpool, death is the only release.

“They will be different, I will be different yet, with Heaven’s help.”

Louisa assures her father that his younger children will be different after Gradgrind promises to change his ways and his younger children become the vehicle for his redemption. After being forced to confront his failure in Tom and Louisa, Gradgrind has an opportunity to raise his younger children differently. Louisa indicates her hope that Sissy (in addition to “Heaven”) will help her father give these children the sentimental upbringing that he denied to his older children.

“I can’t be more miserable anywhere […] than I have been here […].”

Tom is just as miserable and alienated as Louisa. While her alienation manifested in the form of a deep unhappiness, Tom turned to crime and vice to replicate the sentiments that he was denied in his youth. Nevertheless, the result is the same. Like Louisa, Tom tells his family that he hates his life and lays the blame directly on his father. Despite Gradgrind’s criticism of Tom’s moral character, his role in raising his son is responsible for this immorality being allowed to fester.

“I am sure you know that the whole social system is a question of self-interest.”

In a further rebuke of Gradgrind’s ideology, Bitzer refuses his offer of a bribe. In this moment, Gradgrind realizes that he was wrong about his utilitarian beliefs and swears to change his ways. First, however, he must help Tom escape the country—and the person standing in his way is Bitzer, who was educated at Gradgrind’s school and taught to follow Gradgrind’s beliefs. As such, his refusal on the grounds of self-interest forces Gradgrind to confront the inconvenient consequences of his beliefs and actions. Bitzer uses Gradgrind’s own ideology against him.