Hard Times

Coketown, facts, and a circus at the edge of the smoke. Dickens’s Hard Times is Gradgrind’s education versus Sissy Jupe’s heart, Bounderby’s wind, Stephen Blackpool’s luckless truth. Industry as a religion, and the children it fails. Louisa’s marriage, Tom’s rot, a circus child who still knows a horse from a fact. Dickens angry at the factory mind — and still able to make a street breathe smoke and jokes. Louisa Bounderby, Tom’s rot, a circus that still knows a horse.