Hard Times · Chapter
V: The Keynote explained
This chapter provides a detailed description of Coketown, a grim industrial town dominated by factories, smoke, and monotony, where everything is reduced to 'fact' and fancy is suppressed.
What happens
This chapter provides a detailed description of Coketown, a grim industrial town dominated by factories, smoke, and monotony, where everything is reduced to 'fact' and fancy is suppressed. The narrative then follows Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby as they walk through the town, encountering Sissy Jupe being chased by Bitzer, who taunts her about her circus background. Gradgrind reprimands Bitzer and instructs Sissy to lead them to her father's home at Pod's End, a shabby public house.
Themes in this chapter
Fact vs. Fancy
The chapter contrasts the 'fact'-driven, monotonous industrial landscape of Coketown with the suppressed 'fancy' of its inhabitants, exemplified by the circus and Sissy's background.
Industrialization and Its Discontents
Coketown is depicted as a dehumanizing environment of machinery, smoke, and repetitive labor, where workers seek relief through drink, opium, or entertainment, yet are criticized by reformers and industrialists.
Social Class and Inequality
The chapter highlights the divide between the working class, who are dismissed as 'a bad lot' by Gradgrind and Bounderby, and the industrialists who control their lives.
Characters to notice
- Thomas Gradgrind
Walks through Coketown with Bounderby, reprimands Sissy for running and Bitzer for chasing her, then asks Sissy to guide them to her father's home.
- Josiah Bounderby
Accompanies Gradgrind, makes rough comments about Sissy's 'nine oils' and boasts about his own harsh upbringing, dismissing the circus people as idle.
- Sissy Jupe
Frightened by Bitzer's pursuit, she is stopped by Gradgrind and reluctantly leads the two men to her father's lodgings at Pod's End, carrying a bottle of 'nine oils' for her father's bruises.
- Bitzer
Chases Sissy to taunt her about defining a horse, is caught and reprimanded by Gradgrind, then sent home.
Key passages
“It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.”
Coketown's bricks would have been red, but smoke and soot turned them an unnatural red and black, resembling a savage's painted face.
Describes the polluted, grim appearance of the industrial town.
“Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial.”
The town's physical and spiritual life is dominated by an obsession with facts and measurable reality.
Emphasizes the pervasive influence of Gradgrind's philosophy of facts.
“That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions?”
The narrator questions whether the workers' innate need for imagination and relaxation has been ignored, leading to their restless behavior.
Highlights the theme of suppressed fancy and its consequences.