Charles Dickens

Hard Times Charles Dickens

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.[8] 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.