Shmoop Notes for Students on Hard Times

Shmoop notes for students on Hard Times

Hard Times

In A Nutshell

In England, in the middle of the nineteenth century (a.k.a. Victorian times)Charles Dickenswas totally fed up with Utilitarianism and Political Economy.
Whoa, don't panic! Shmoop to the what-on-earth-is-that-big-capitalized-word rescue! Political Economy is just what they called economics back in the day, and Utilitarianism is the idea that we should set up society to do the greatest good for the most number of people. It sounds good when we say it like that, but how can anyone tell what the greatest good is? And what happens to the people who aren't part of that "greatest number"? Utilitarian thinkers were threatening to slowly but surely replace older Judeo-Christian ideas of morality with more statistically based explanations of what people should do for themselves, for one another, and for society.
Now there is definitely some dispute about how far the economists really wanted to take their theories. Some, like David Ricardo, just hung back and decided that economics was descriptive. It was like saying, "Wait, we're not telling youhowto live your life. We're just making observations about how many people do this and that, so the government can use those numbers for better governing." On the other hand, other economists, like Harriet Martineau, were pretty psyched to make their ideas proscriptive – they really did want to go around and tell everybody what do to and how to do it.
Dickens, meanwhile, didn't really care about the internal fighting of the economists. He was totally against their whole deal in general. He strongly believed that people are individuals and their lives and choices can't be explained by math or logic alone. Also, he was deeply committed to the idea of acting for the sake of others. Self-sacrifice, altruism, generosity, and compassion were all high on his must-do list. He believed that these behaviours would be lost in an economic system that claims that people should act only according to their self-interest.
So, in 1854, to point out the dangers of the popular economic theories in his day, Dickens wrote the novelHard Times. It's about a brother and a sister raised totally on the principles of economic theory (or at least economic theory the way Dickens understood it). And guess what? Not so surprisingly, their lives turn out pretty horrible. (But you'll have to read the book to find out what happens – we don't want to spoil the ending for you.) Dickens seems to say, "Economics is going to mess everyone up!" But the same thing that makes writing fiction awesome (you get to make everything happen how you want it to happen) is what makes it easy to criticize. When this novel came out, many people loved it. But at the same time, lots of pro-economics, pro-industrialization, pro-business people started to nitpick all the little mistakes Dickens had made about how factories really work and what economic theories actually look like.
What these nitpickers weren't paying attention to, though, is something that we don't really get to experience anymore – thewaythat people originally read the novel. It was originally published serially in Dickens's social commentary magazine,Household Words. Every week, a new issue ofHousehold Wordswould come out. The very first thing in it was the latest instalment ofHard Times, talking about the general crummy-ness of things. And right after this first section, the rest of the magazine was socially-conscious journalism, documenting this same crummy-ness in real-life England. It was basically the nineteenth century version of watching episodes ofThe Wirewhile streaming NPR.

Why Should I Care?

Okay, quick. Get out your wallet. Now open it. What do you see? We see… some receipts… gum wrappers… more receipts… ooh, a reminder note to get deodorant! Glad we found that. Know what we're not glad about, though? What's missing: cash-o-la, baby. Nope. There's more dryer lint than dinero in there. How about you?

What's that? Youdon'tdo theCarlton danceevery time you open your wallet or log in to your bank account? Well, don't fret old chum. You're in good company, as in the 99% of us who don't have elevators in our six-car garages, who have never flown on a private jet, those of us whotrulyvalue the Taco Bell value menu (mmmm, MexiMelt…). Basically, you are one of billions of people around the world who have to worry about money.

Now, there are plenty of long-winded theories, and tweed-jacketed economists out there who love to talk about big, economic forces and political decisions and yaddayaddayadda. What matters to us, though, is why we had to save up for a whole year just to get new breaks on our 1996 Ford Fiesta (we love you,Grape Ape!).

Now, they say that money can't buy happiness, but it sure solves a lot of problems. And those problems are precisely whatDickenswas aiming to portray inHard Times. It's not about charts and graphs and info-graphics on the news. It's about the people who are affected by the day-to-day realities of that giant term, "the economy"—as in the (spoiler alert!) falling-in-a-rich-factory-owner's-hole-and-dying kind of realities. Poor Stephen…

So, for those of you who are broke as a joke, you might find shared comfort in knowing that, throughout history, folks have suffered due to economic hardship. You might even be inspired to improve the conditions of the neediest among us, to raise your own voice (like Dickens, orthis guy) to work for a future in which everyone, someday, might afford their own chance at happiness.

Hard Times Summary

How It All Goes Down

In the industrial city of Coketown, Josiah Bounderby is a rich and fairly obnoxious factory owner and banker. He loves to tell everyone he meets about how he grew up in the gutter, abused by a drunken grandmother. He is friends with Thomas Gradgrind, a rich politician and an education reformer in whose school students only learn about facts. Gradgrind's own children, Tom and Louisa, also grow up in this system. The kids are forbidden to be creative or imaginative or to have too many feelings. Gradgrind is basically trying to make kids into robots, with predictably bad results.
When a traveling circus show comes to Coketown, one of the clowns abandons his daughter, Sissy Jupe, there. Gradgrind takes her in as a servant. She is a natural, happy, not particularly robotic girl, and his system does not seem to make too much of a dent in her good nature.
Louisa and Tom grow up (well, not really – she is nineteen and he is seventeen, but everything happened faster back in the day, especially for robot-children). Gradgrind basically gives both of them to Bounderby. Tom works for him as a bank clerk, and poor Louisa ends up marrying the guy. Oh, did we mention that he's a nasty and annoying? And that Louisa is grossed out by the sight of him? And that he has been really creepily waiting to marry her? Let's all say it together now – ewwwww. But, obviously Gradgrind thinks everything is fine – because since when do robots care about that kind of thing?
Meanwhile, in Bounderby's factory, a worker named Stephen Blackpool is the world's most decent man and he leads a pretty sad life. He got married too young to a woman who is now a raging, half-crazy alcoholic. He pays her to stay away from him, which she mostly does, except when she doesn't. He is also in love with a factory worker named Rachael, but they're both out of luck, obviously. We know what you're thinking (Stephen should get a divorce), but that's not the way Victorian England rolled. As Stephen finds out from Bounderby, to get a divorce he would need to pay for Parliament to pass a law letting him do it. Then he'd have to pay for another law allowing him to remarry. Not happening.
A year later, Louisa is still pretty miserably married to gross Bounderby. Tom, meanwhile, is getting into his own trouble with being a lazy bank clerk, gambling, staying out till all hours, and generally behaving like a jerk to his sister. Bounderby is as unpleasant as ever, and Gradgrind has now been elected to Parliament. The four of them meet James Harthouse, a smooth operator who claims to be trying to get into politics. He mostly just coasts on his good looks, his wealth, and his attitude of completely not caring about anything or anyone. Because he is a born gentleman, he is instantly the coolest, most popular kid on the block. He decides to use that popularity to seduce Louisa. Hmm, let's see, Louisa's husband revolts her, she has never been taught about emotions or how they work, and Harthouse is hot! But on the other hand, adultery is a really big no-no…. Stay tuned to see what happens!
In the factory, all the workers are being organized into a union. Everyone is psyched to finally stick it to the man, except Stephen, who for some undisclosed personal reason doesn't want any part of it. So, the other workers decide to ignore and ostracize him. Then Bounderby asks Stephen to rat on the union. When he refuses, Bounderby fires him. Stephen is forced to look for work elsewhere. Before he leaves, Louisa gives him some traveling money, and Tom in secret asks him to loiter in front of Bounderby's bank for a few nights. To which the obvious answer seems "Um, no thanks," but Stephen agrees.
The morning after Stephen leaves, Bounderby discovers that the bank has been robbed! Of only 150 pounds.But still, a crime. Suspicion naturally falls on Stephen, who seemingly was casing the joint before he left. People also suspect an old woman who periodically comes in to town to watch the bank for unknown reasons. Bounderby leaves town to personally oversee the investigation.
Seizing the opportunity, Harthouse reveals to Louisa his passion for her and asks her to run away with him. She seems to agree to a complicated plan involving meeting him later, but instead takes the train to her father's house in Coketown. For the first time in her life, she confronts Gradgrind about the unnaturalness of her upbringing. She tells him she might be in love with Harthouse, confesses that she almost had an affair, and then faints. Gradgrind is shocked, and he finally realizes how much he messed up his kids.
Trying to keep things civil, Gradgrind asks Bounderby to let Louisa be a semi-permanent "visitor" at her father's house. But Bounderby is all like, "Actually, no, because you pretty much sold her to me, remember? If she doesn't come back by tomorrow, this marriage is over." This might seem ideal. But it means that Louisa would no longer be financially supported by Bounderby, but would still have to be married to him legally. She'd be totally stuck. Sissy seeks out Harthouse , telling him to leave and never come back.
At the same time, Sissy Jupe and Rachael are worried about Stephen and try to find him. Taking a walk across the countryside they stumble on him (literally) lying almost dead in a huge well dug by some factory owner and not marked in any way. He is fished out, pleads his innocence about the robbery, and dies. Yes, sorry, no happy ending for the only decent guy in the whole book. Tom flees, and Louisa and Gradgrind realize that he is the bank robber, and that the only hope is to smuggle him out of the country. Tom hides as a clown in the same circus where Sissy's father used to work. When Gradgrind confronts him, Tom tells his father that political economy made him into a thief, and if he hadn't stolen the money, someone else would have.
Just as Gradgrind is about to put him aboard ship, the family is discovered by one of Gradgrind's old students, Bitzer. Bitzer is quite the economist and refuses to be swayed by Gradgrind's begging to let them go. After all, Bitzer has learned only to advance his own self-interest, which at this point indicates that he should capture Tom to get the probable reward. This is the final nail in the coffin of Gradgrind's educational theory. Still, the circus guys help Tom get away.
In the end, Bounderby dies of some kind of fit in the street. Gradgrind lives to old age and tries to undo the damage he did to his children. Louisa remains unmarried and childless (which is a pretty severe punishment back in those days). Tom eventually feels bad about being so awful, but has to remain abroad. Rachael lives out her life taking care of Stephen's drunken widow. Sissy gets married, has children, and seems to be the only light in everyone's lives.

Hard Times Themes

Little Words, Big Ideas

Philosophical Viewpoints: Utilitarianism and Classical Economics

In Hard Times, the ideas behind Utilitarianism, statistical economics, and the way they may shape government and educational policy all run together to present a bleak future for the children raise...

Philosophical Viewpoints: Creativity and the Imagination

Paradoxically, in Hard Times, play and pleasure turn out to be a kind of work that is just as difficult as factory labor. No job is more physically demanding than that of the circus performers, who...

Education

There is a strong case made in Hard Times that education is not simply the classroom experience of memorizing facts. The novel expresses the view that having an emotional component to our education...

Wealth

Hard Times definitely has a specific view on wealth. In this novel, the gulf between rich and poor is vast and cannot be crossed, despite the myth created by the rich that the poor can lift themsel...

Power

Power comes in several forms in Hard Times. On the one hand, the numerous factory workers represent a tremendous force, both in terms of their ability to operate machinery and produce goods, and in...

Women and Femininity

In the Victorian ideal, a woman was the repository of family morality – the one who would not only nurture the bodies of her children and husband, but also their minds. The educational experi...

Family

Hard Times expresses the opinion that even an ad hoc, somewhat messily organized family is the best kind of community structure, as long as there's love present. This is shown in the descriptions o...

Love

In Hard Times, love itself can be a positive or negative emotion, regardless of whether it occurs between romantic partners or parents and children. There are examples of socially sanctioned and nu...

Marriage

There are no happy marriages in Hard Times. In Stephen's case, it focuses instead on a missed opportunity for true companionship. In the case of the Gradgrinds, you've got an entirely intellectuall...

Morality and Ethics

In Hard Times, the key moral attributes that the villains lack are empathy, generosity, and altruism. For Dickens, these are the foundation of human relationships. There is no getting around them w...

Thomas Gradgrind

Character Analysis

Gradgrind is a middle-class businessman and later a Member of Parliament. More importantly, he is the owner and operator of the educational system Dickens is dead set against. Grandgrind's system is based on the idea that only facts, math, and the measurable are important. He thinks that touchy-feely things like emotions and creativity should be repressed. Gradgrind not only raises his own kids according to his theory, but also makes sure that the school children taught by Mr.M'Choakumchild have it drilled into their heads as well.
However, as he finds many years later, if you don't teach morality, the kids won't learn morality. And so Gradgrind's comeuppance is extremely appropriate (of the eye-for-an-eye variety). Everyone who has excelled at Gradgrind-directed studies ends up betraying or letting him down in a shattering way. His daughter Louisa makes a terrible marriage, almost has an affair, and ends up separated and childless. His son Tom becomes a thief and frames another man for his crime. In the final kicker, Bitzer, the model student, refuses every appeal for mercy and gratitude from his old headmaster. Instead he just quotes Gradgrind's own materialistic and selfish philosophies back to him.
Still, what seems interesting is that Gradgrind doesn't himself live according to his worldview. He is generous – for instance, he accepts Sissy into his school and lets her live at his house when her father abandons her. He is a lot more tolerant and empathetic than other fathers of the time would be toward a near-adulterous daughter. We see him immediately take Louisa in and encourage her to be apart from Bounderby. And by helping Tom escape from justice without hesitation, Gradgrind shows that he believes that his duties as a father outweigh whatever he might owe the nation as an indifferent citizen.
In the end, Gradgrind is actually able to see how wrongheaded his approach has been. He changes his attitude and behaviour to the point that he is ostracized by members of his party in Parliament. Why do you think this is? Gradgrind is the poster-boy for the strict school of thought that the novel seems to be demonizing. What is the reader to make of the fact that he actually turns out to be a fairly decent human being?