Hard Times

“Some persons hold,” he pursued, still hesitating, “that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart.”

The central focus surrounds the fictional Northern-English Mill-town named Coketown. Here, the owner of the local school, a Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, educates his students in taking part in pure facts and never anything abstract or imaginative. This school of thought, called Utilitarianism, raises many social questions and his children themselves see an impact from such hard line thinking.

Dickens wanted to educate readers of his time on the appalling, and many times dehumanizing, working conditions of factories in industrial towns and to also satirize the prevailing thoughts of the day, including seeing life through pure statistics and with no emotion.