What I really want are facts. Thomas Gradgrind’s opening line in Charles Dickens Hard Times reads: “Teach the boys and girls no other than Facts” (9). Gradgrind’s utilitarian schoolhouse philosophy is a constant reminder to the reader of this fact-based approach. Gradgrind teaches the same philosophy at Stone Lodge to his children. Gradgrind turns his students into little machines. Gradgrind’s daughter Louisa is Dickens’s Hard Times’ central example of how the Industrial Revolution mechanized people.

Louisa Gradgrind plays a central role in Hard Times. She strives for her father’s approval by living by the Facts. Her education has always been “mechanical” (71) and never included “the cultivation” of sentiments or affections (71). Louisa’s father repeatedly warns her to “Never Wonder” and constantly reminds her of the importance Fact. Louisa has become a lifeless, cold character. She does not seem to know what she feels and is devoid of warmth.

Louisa is haunted by the mechanical world that surrounds her. Gradgrind’s rationale philosophy and the Industrial Revolution are both at their height. Factory workers’ repetitive tasks are dangerous, as they don’t require any thought or emotion. Gray smog, dense haze and lifeless ashes are produced by the factories. Coketown becomes a “dense and formless jumble”, surrounded by a “blurred haze of smoke and soot,” (151), which crawls across the Earth and turns out to be nothing but darkness. Dickens’s novel is an incisive critique of the Industrial Revolution. By focusing on its setting, Dickens argues implicitly that factory work threatens to transform humans into objects. Dickens warns that if imagination is dulled life becomes a miserable existence.

Louisa is “the victory of [Mr. Gradgrind’s] systems” (288), and she feels the agony. She only learns about her father’s philosophy, but has reservations throughout the book. Louisa empathizes Stephen Blackpool. She feels sympathy for her older brother. Louisa has a limited understanding of emotions due to her education. However, unlike her dad, she understands the existence and purpose of those emotions in her daily life. Louisa’s position is between the two extremes that Gradgrind has created: Bitzer, the perfect product from his “model school”, as well as Sissyjupe, the person who lives with Gradgrind but remains impervious of his system.

After the conclusion of the second chapter, Louisa is overwhelmed by the mechanical nature of her education and collapses at the feet her father. Louisa has become unable to cope with her emotions due to her dad’s repression. Louisa realizes that her life has become an unmanageable list of Facts before she collapses. As her suppressed feelings begin to surface, Louisa tells her dad: “Your philosophy, your teaching, will not save you.” “Now, Father, You’ve brought Me to This” (288). Gradgrind is shocked to see his “pride and triumph” at the bottom of the pile.

Louisa, the daughter of Mr. Gradgrind, realizes that her home is a wasteland and that her “graces” (284) and the garden at Stone Lodge haven’t been properly cared for. Louisa asks her father, “What’s the matter, Father? You have ruined this garden, which was meant to have been a beautiful bloom in that great wilderness.” (284) Gradgrind realizes by watering Louisa with only Fact that he has “spoiled “her. When Mr. Gradgrind begins to realize that there is more to life than Fact, he and Louisa begin to grow and flourish in their empty hearts.

Sources Cited

Dickens, Charles. Dickens, Charles. Pocket Books published New York in 2007.

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