Hard times

It depicts Coketown, a typical red-brick industrial city of the north. In its schools and factories children and adults are caged and enslaved, with no personal freedom until their spirit is broken. Against this social backdrop where harsh regimes are enforced by the likes of Josiah Bounderby, the pompous self-made man, and Grandgrind, the censorious disciplinarian, the personal tragedies of Louisa Grandgrind and Stephen Blackpool are played out.