"
Hard Times" is a novel written by Charles Dickens.
The story is set in a
fictitious place called Coketown. It begins
with the life of warm-hearted and amiable Sissy Jupe, a circus child who is deserted by her sick father. He is adopted into the family of the retired hardware merchant Thomas Gradgrind who has two children, Tom and Louisa.
Sadly, the household is devoid of love, so the children grows up deprived of affection, love and care. The effect is devastating on Tom and Luisa. Tom becomes a thief, and is saved only through Sissy and the circus folk. Louisa is driven to a miserable marriage to rich and big-headed Josiah Bounderby, followed by an affair with a man about town, James Harthouse.
Another character is Stephen Blackpool, the honest worker in Bounderby's mill, who is burdened with a drunken wife but loved by Rachel, a factory help. Shunned and ostracized by his fellow workmen, Stephen is driven out of the
community. In his absence, he is suspected of the crime committed by Tom Gradgrind. Stephen is only exonerated after death.
There are other characters in minor roles, including the fact-crammed Bitzer, ideal product of M'Choakumchild's school; the snobbish housekeeper of Bounderby, Mrs Sparsit; the trade union organizer Slackbridge; and the kind members of Sleary's circus troupe.
Dicken's
Hard Times is regarded as a state-of-the-nation novel that deals with a sensitive issue of trade unions as well as the conflict between the capitalistic mill owners and the undervalued workers during the post-Industrial Revolution Victorian era.
The story is well-contained, fast-moving and straight to what the title implies, hard times. It highlights the effect of social and economic pressures on people as individuals, and eventually, as a community.