Synopses & Reviews
Thomas Gradgrind destroys the spiritual and emotional lives of his children by denying the importance of human feelings, in a stark critique of capitalist exploitation and a condemnation of the philosophy of materialism prevalent during the Victorian Industrial Revolution. Read by Frederick Davidson. Book available.
Synopsis
In the squalor of a textile town, successful businessman and arch-pragmatist Thomas Gradgrind, proclaiming that he is a self-made man, teaches his children to suppress their imagination and embrace hard facts. He arranges the marriage of his daughter Louisa to Josiah Bounderby, an unattractive, boastful manufacturer who is thirty years older than she.
Gradgrind believes that he has succeeded as a father when his son Thomas goes to work in Bounderby's bank.
When Tom steals from his employer and Louisa flees the horror of her marriage, Gradgrind must acknowledge the error of his lifelong devotion to facts and utility.
Synopsis
Originally written for Dickens' weekly magazine, Household Words, this short novel follows the fate of Sissy Jupe, a warm-hearted circus child, and the family that adopts her. Deserted by her ailing father, Sissy is taken into the cold household of the Gradgrind family, which operates a school. The "eminently practical" Thomas Gradgrind believes only in facts and figures and has raised his children accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They grow up in ignorance of love and affection, of beauty and culture, or of empathy for others, and the consequences are devastating. Only after numerous crises does Thomas realize that his principles have corrupted their lives. Dickens' satirical expose of the Industrial Revolution condemns the utilitarianism that exploited the bodies, minds, and souls of the vulnerable labor class.