'Hard Times' Summary

Superintendent Mr. Gradgrind opens the novel at his school in Coketown stating, "Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts",and interrogates one of his pupils, Cecilia (nicknamed Sissy), whose father works at a circus. Because her father works with horses, Gradgrind demands the definition of a horse. When she is scolded for her inability to factually define a horse, her classmate Bitzer gives a zoological profile, and Sissy is censured for suggesting that she would carpet a floor with pictures of flowers or horses.

Louisa and Thomas, two of Mr. Gradgrind's children, go after school to see the touring circus run by Mr. Sleary, only to meet their father, who orders them home. Mr. Gradgrind has three younger children: Adam Smith (after the famous theorist of laissez-faire policy), Malthus (after Rev. Thomas Malthus, who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, warning of the dangers of future overpopulation), and Jane.

Josiah Bounderby, "a man perfectly devoid of sentiment", is revealed as Gradgrind's close friend. Bounderby is a manufacturer and mill owner who is affluent as a result of his enterprise and capital. He often gives dramatic and falsified accounts of his childhood, which terrifies Mr. Bounderby's housekeeper, Mrs. Sparsit.

As they consider her a bad influence on the other children, Gradgrind and Bounderby prepare to dismiss Sissy from the school; but the three soon discover her father has abandoned her thereto, in hope that she will lead a better life without him. At this point members of the circus appear, led by their manager, Mr. Sleary. Mr. Gradgrind gives Sissy a choice: to return to the circus and forfeit her education, or to continue her education and work for Mrs. Gradgrind, never returning to the circus. Sissy accepts the latter, hoping to be reunited with her father. At the Gradgrind house, Tom and Louisa are discontented by their education, and so is Sissy.

Amongst the mill workers, known as "the Hands",is a gloomy man named Stephen Blackpool (nicknamed "Old Stephen"): another of the story's protagonists. When introduced, he has ended his day's work and meets his close friend Rachael. On entering his house he finds that his drunken wife - who has been living away from him - has made an unwelcome return. Stephen is greatly perturbed, and visits Bounderby to ask how he can legally end his marriage. Mrs. Sparsit, Mr. Bounderby's paid companion, disapproves of Stephen's query and Bounderby explains that ending a marriage would be complex and prohibitively costly. Leaving the house, Stephen meets an old woman who seems interested in Bounderby and says she visits Coketown once a year. Upon returning, he finds Rachael caring for his wife, using what is likely to be a poisonous liquid, and stays until three o'clock.

Gradgrind tells Louisa that Josiah Bounderby, 30 years her senior, has proposed marriage to her, and quotes statistics to prove that an age difference does not make a marriage unhappy or short. Louisa passively accepts the offer, and the newlyweds set out to Lyons (Lyon), where Bounderby wants to observe how labour is used in the factories there. Tom, her brother, elatedly bids her farewell