The industrial revolution was a time of great technological changes. It revolutionised everything, from the way people lived to where they worked, but what society often overlooked was how ordinary people went through their day to day lives. In the book ‘Hard Times’, Charles Dickens has produced some exceptional characters to represent the complexity of each social class. From the arrogance of aristocracy to the struggle of the common workers, and the way in which they cope with the many hardships they will endure.

Charles Dickens was able to personify the different social classes. The real reason why Charles Dickens wrote Hard Times was because he was low on funds, this was due to his sales being low on his periodical magazine “Household words”. He hoped by writing this novel in instalments would bale him out by increasing his profits. However, Dickends wished to satirize radical utilitarians who dickens thought to be ‘those who see figures and averages, and nothing else’. He also wished to campaign for reform of working conditions. In as early as 1839, dickens visted factories in Manchester and was appalled by the conditions workers had to work in.

Furthermore, Charles Dickens gives us a close up look into what appears to be the ivory tower of the bourgeoisie of his day, yet these middle-class characters are viewed from a singular perspective, the perspective of those at the bottom of the social and economic system. Though Dickens characters tend to be well developed and presented with a thoroughly human quality, the stereotypical figure of arrogant and demanding Bounderby, fails to accurately capture the motivations and attitudes of the typical successful businessman of the day and is an indication of the authors political motives.

Furthermore, one of the targets of Dickens uncharacteristic mordancy in this novel are utilitarians. In the novelist’s time,