Hard Times

Charles Dickens had written in a letter to Carlyle that he wrote Hard Times (1854) with the purpose to shake people in a terrible mistake of these days. The terrible mistake refers to the utilitarian philosophy elucidated in Hard Times as the Theory of Fact by the steadfast disciplinarian Thomas Gradgrind. Hard Times traces the life of a sensible, kind-hearted girl Sissy, a circus child abandoned by her remorseful father. She is given resort by a fact-ridden retired merchant Thomas Gradgrind whose offsprings Tom and Louisa are brought up in a manner absolutely divorced of love and affection that result in the catastrophe of both's life. Louisas unfortunate marriage ends in ever loneliness of her life and Tom who had committed the sin of robbery in his brother-in-law Bounderbys bank is rescued by Sissys efforts. These sad happenings compel Gradgrind to realise the flaws of his 'Theory of Fact'. The Critical Evaluation of Hard Trles Dickens and the Twentieth Century Novel