This essay discusses Charles Dickens' book, "Hard Times", with respect to the
industrial elite, such as the factory owners,
and their relationship with the working class. More specifically, the author discusses how Social Darwinism, a philosophy that allowed for the mistreatment of the poor, played a major role in the separation of the two classes. From the Paper: "Dickens' book, "Hard Times", first came out in 1854, well after
evolutionary theory had been introduced to Britain. Bounderby, one of the characters in Hard Times, represents an adherent to a variation on evolutionary theory: Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is the idea that social policy should allow the weak and unfit to fail and die, and that this is not only good policy but morally righ.t"