Hard Times

The novel "Hard Times" is set in the industrial city of Coketown, where everything is de-personalized: people dress the same, leave their houses and return at the same hours, tapping the soles of identical shoes. In the city, the philosophy of facts and figures is widespread, which the wealthy banker Bounderby follows—so is the education system at Gradgrind’s school: without love, warmth, or imagination. Against the soulless world of facts stands a troupe of a traveling circus and the circusman’s little daughter, Sissy Juup.