Hard Times by Charles Dickens

I am now reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens, of A Christmas Carol fame.

This book is an attack on both the cruelity of the Victorian factories and the learning institutions that destroyed the creativity, imagination, and fancies of the people in favor of “Facts.” Dickens was working in a factory at age twelve, so he knew these industries inside out. He also felt compassion for the victims of these factories – he had been there, he knew what it was like.

So far, the figure pinning this story together (as far as I have read) is Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, who runs a model school and is a friend of Mr. Josiah Bounderby, a wealthy industrialist. There is one character, Cecilia Jupe, called “Sissy,” who was the daughter of a circus clown, who is being cared for by Mr. Gradgrind after her father ran away. You see, she was once a fanciful little girl, growing up in a circus, but Mr. Gradgrid strongly and actively discourages fancy. The book has also told of some of the life of Stephen Blackpool, a worker (Hand, as they are called) in a factory owned by Bounderby. He has a problem. His wife is this nasty drunken woman, and he wishes to be free of her to marry this other woman, but he cannot afford that.