Hard Times · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Josiah Bounderby
major
Also known as Mr. Bounderby, Bounderby, old Bounderby, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown
Bounderby dominates Coketown as banker, mill owner, and self-proclaimed self-made man, forever thundering about his humble origins and his contempt for fancy. His loud certainty and his habit of treating people as investments collide with the Gradgrinds' cold system, and his pursuit of Louisa turns a business alliance into a domestic trap. He embodies the arrogance of the practical man, and his bluster drives much of the novel's social and marital tension.
Thomas Gradgrind
major
Also known as Mr. Gradgrind, Thomas Gradgrind, Gradgrind, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind
Gradgrind runs a model school and a model family on the principle that nothing but Fact should matter, banishing fancy from both. His favourite child, Louisa, and his son, Tom, grow up starved of imagination, and the results quietly horrify him as he begins to see what his arithmetic left out. His slow, painful recognition of what he has done makes him the novel's central figure of well-meaning but disastrous education.
Louisa Gradgrind
major
Also known as Louisa, Miss Louisa, Loo, Loo Bounderby
Louisa is her father's favourite and his most thorough experiment, a girl who has learned to reason but never to feel. Bound to her brother Tom by the only warmth in her life, she is married off to Bounderby as a matter of practical arrangement, and her cold marriage becomes a slow study in what a fact-trained heart can and cannot bear. Her inner life is the novel's deepest inquiry into the cost of suppressing imagination.
Stephen Blackpool
major
Also known as Stephen Blackpool, Stephen, Blackpool, Old Stephen
Stephen works the looms of Bounderby's mill and carries a reputation for plain integrity that sets him apart from his fellow hands. Trapped by an unhappy marriage he cannot legally escape, and unwilling to join the union agitation, he finds himself suspected by masters and workers alike. His loneliness and his stubborn decency make him the novel's moral centre among the poor.
James Harthouse
supporting
Also known as Mr. James Harthouse, Jem, James Harthouse, Mr. Harthouse, Harthouse
Harthouse arrives in Coketown as a polished, cynical idler with no purpose but his own entertainment, armed with charm and a talent for reading other people's weaknesses. He befriends young Tom and circles Louisa with a calculated, languid pursuit, treating her reserve as a challenge rather than a person. His presence introduces a new kind of danger into the Gradgrind world, one that facts cannot calculate and that tests Louisa's hard-won self-command.
Sissy Jupe
major
Also known as Sissy, Cecilia, Cecilia Jupe, Jupe
Sissy grows up among riders and clowns until her father's disappearance leaves her to be taken in by the Gradgrinds, where she is set to learn facts and fails at them with gentle persistence. Her inability to see statistics as anything but people, and her instinctive kindness toward Louisa, make her a quiet counterweight to the whole system. She matters because she offers the novel's alternative to calculation: sympathy, memory, and the courage to feel.
Rachael
supporting
Also known as Rachael, XIII Rachael
Rachael belongs to the same grinding factory world as Stephen Blackpool, and she loves him with a patience that the town's masters would never think to measure. When Stephen is tangled in a miserable marriage and later accused of robbery, her steadiness — cooling hands, a shawl adjusted just so, a willingness to walk and breathe through grief — becomes the story's image of unspectacular fidelity. She matters because she keeps hope alive for Stephen when no institution will.
Bitzer
supporting
Also known as Bitzer
Bitzer is what Mr. Gradgrind's system produces when it works exactly as designed: a young man with no warmth, no loyalty, and an eye for the main chance. He moves from classroom prize specimen to bank employee, always weighing advantage, never sentiment. His coldness exposes the moral emptiness of a philosophy that treats people as sums, and his choices in the middle of the book show how easily such training curdles into betrayal.
Mr. Sleary
supporting
Also known as Sleary, Mr. Sleary
Mr. Sleary runs the traveling circus where Sissy Jupe grew up, a world of horses, acrobats, and easy kindness that Gradgrind dismisses as mere amusement. He speaks with a lisp, drives a hard bargain, and yet keeps faith with his people in ways the 'practical' men never do. His willingness to shelter and protect the vulnerable makes him a quiet reproach to the Gradgrind philosophy, and his circus becomes the novel's emblem of imagination surviving in the margins.
Mrs. Sparsit
supporting
Also known as Mrs. Sparsit, Sparsit
Mrs. Sparsit clings to her faded family connections while serving as Bounderby's housekeeper, a position she treats as a stage for her wounded dignity. She resents Louisa's youth and position, and her officious meddling — especially her zeal in tracking down Mrs. Pegler — is driven as much by spite as by loyalty. Her schemes and humiliations expose the petty cruelties that flourish in a society obsessed with rank and self-interest.
Mrs. Gradgrind
minor
Also known as Mrs. Gradgrind, Gradgrind
The sickly, ineffectual wife of Thomas Gradgrind.
Tom Gradgrind Junior
supporting
Also known as Tom, young Thomas, young Tom, Thomas, Dear Tom
Young Tom grows up in the 'jaundiced jail' of his father's house, convinced he is a mule because he was never allowed to be anything else. He adores his sister Louisa and hates almost everything else, and his resentment curdles into reckless debts and dangerous friendships. His slide from bored schoolboy to desperate young man is one of the novel's sharpest indictments of a childhood stripped of imagination and warmth.
Slackbridge
minor
Also known as Slackbridge
A fiery, manipulative union orator who turns workers against Stephen.
Mrs. Pegler
minor
Also known as Mrs. Pegler, old Mrs. Pegler, Pegler
An old woman who secretly visits Coketown, later revealed as Bounderby's mother.
E. W. B. Childers
minor
Also known as Mr. Childers, Childers, E. W. B. Childers, E. W. B.
A performer in Sleary's circus, father of the equestrian star.
Signor Jupe
minor
Also known as Signor Jupe
Sissy's father, a clown who abandons the circus.
Mr. M'Choakumchild
minor
Also known as Mr. M'Choakumchild, good M'Choakumchild, M'Choakumchild
A dreary schoolteacher who drills facts into Gradgrind's students.
Master Kidderminster
minor
Also known as Master Kidderminster, Mr. Kidderminster
A young circus performer in Sleary's troupe.
Merrylegs
minor
Also known as Merrylegs
Signor Jupe's performing dog who returns alone to the circus.
George Gradgrind
minor
Also known as George Gradgrind, George
Thomas Gradgrind's brother, mentioned as a dissipated figure.
Josephine Sleary
minor
Also known as Miss Josephine Sleary, Josephine, little fair-haired Josephine
Sleary's daughter, a young circus rider.
Lady Scadgers
minor
Also known as Lady Scadgers
An elderly, immobile relative of Mrs. Sparsit.
Emma Gordon
minor
Also known as Emma Gordon, Emma
A young woman mentioned in relation to Tom Gradgrind's debts.
Nickits
minor
Also known as Nickits
A former owner of the Coketown mill purchased by Bounderby.
Thethilia
minor
Also known as Thethilia
A circus performer with a lisp, part of Sleary's troupe.
Jane Gradgrind
minor
Also known as little Jane, little Jane Gradgrind, Jane
The youngest Gradgrind child, who later shows kindness.
Mother Sparsit
minor
Also known as Mother Sparsit
Mrs. Sparsit's mother, mentioned as a former society figure.
The Late Mr. Sparsit
minor
Also known as The late Mr. Sparsit
Mrs. Sparsit's deceased husband, a former member of parliament.
