“Now, what I want are the facts. Teach these boys and girls only facts” (9) utters Thomas Gradgrind in the opening line of the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Gradgrind employs this utilitarian philosophy in his school and repeatedly reminds the reader that there is no room for idle reverie and that nothing matters but facts. Gradgrind not only practices this belief in his school, but it is also the philosophy he teaches his children within the walls of Stone Lodge. The mechanized effects of Mr. Gradgrind's teachings transform these children into true products of the industrial revolution: little machines. Gradgrind's eldest daughter, Louisa, becomes the central example of the mechanization of people in Dickens' Hard Times, and serves as a powerful critique of the coldness and dehumanization of the Industrial Revolution. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Louisa Gradgrind is the central female figure in Hard Times; he tries hard to suppress his passions and curiosities so he can please his father by living a fact-driven life. His education was a “mechanical art” (71) that never stooped to the “cultivation of feelings and affections” (71). Louisa is repeatedly warned by her father to "Never be surprised" and is continually reminded of the importance of Facts. Louisa's upbringing has created an almost lifeless character who seemingly lacks warmth and does not adequately know how to acknowledge or express her feelings. Louisa's mechanical character is overshadowed by a disturbingly mechanical world. The Industrial Revolution is at its peak, and the effects of factory life on workers parallel the effects of Gradgrind's rational philosophy on his own children. The repetitive tasks of workers are dangerous because they do not require thought or evoke any sense of emotion. The factories themselves produce gray smog and thick haze that fills the Coketown sky, and lifeless ash that blankets the buildings where workers must live. As a result, Coketown has been transformed into a “thick shapeless jumble,” covered in a “stain of soot and smoke” (151) that creeps across the land and proves to be nothing but darkness. Thus, through this emphasis on setting, Dickens's novel provides a damning assessment of the Industrial Revolution and implicitly argues that habit-intensive factory work threatens to turn people into things, to make them as cold and hard as the machinery that they work, dark and blurry. like the city they live in. Dickens suggests that when the imagination is clouded, life will become an almost unbearable existence, an existence without pleasure or meaning. Louisa, “the triumph of [Mr. Gradgrind] system” (288), feels the agony of such an existence. She is exposed exclusively to the methodology of her father's system, but throughout the novel she demonstrates that she has reservations about that philosophy. Louisa takes a deep liking to her brother, convinces him to peek into the forbidden fantasies of the circus, empathizes with Stephen Blackpool, and experiences emotional turmoil upon the arrival of James Harthouse. Louisa's upbringing may prevent her from fully understanding her emotions, but unlike her father, she recognizes that those emotions exist and have a purpose in the fabric of her life. Louisa falls somewhere between the two extremes of Gradgrind's system: Bitzer, the ideal product produced by the "model school", and Sissy Jupe, who despite living with Mr. Gradgrind remains impervious to his system. By the end of the second book, the mechanization of Louisa's education catches up with her,, 2007.