person is not a class or a machine, but rather an individual with thoughts and feelings belonging to no one else but that person.We are soon introduced to a group of individuals on the bottom of the social classes. This group of people knows only fantasy, and knows nothing about facts. They are the circus people, and their main purpose is to bring joy into other peoples lives. When a young circus girl’s father abandons her, Mr. Gradgrind takes her in so that she can be properly educated. Sissy Jupe is a warm and loving individual who can not accept a life of facts alone. She has a huge impact in the lives of the Gradgrinds. One author agrees by saying that Mr. Gradgrind “is redeemable, and the course of the novel will show that he will be redeemed by Sissy. He fails to educate her head, but she succeeds in educating his heart” (Tillotson 46). Dickens protests the treatments of the circus people. Much can be learned from people such as them. What he was trying to say is to put love and happiness first, and everything else will fall into place. Sissy grows up to have a family and a happy life, where as Louisa ends up in a loveless and unhappy marriage because she does not know how to dream of anything else.Josiah Bounderby is in the same middle class as the Gradgrinds however, we soon discover that he is different than they turn out to be. Mr. Bounderby is a wealthy factory owner, and a supposed “self made man.” He goes on and on of how he has risen himself from the gutters to his present position. As he proclaims in the novel, “My mother left me to my grandmother… and, according to the best of my remembrance, my grandmother was the wickedest and worst old woman that ever lived. If I got a pair of shoes by chance, she would take ‘em off and sell ‘em for drink” (Dickens 25). He soon expands on the story of his rise to wealth by marring the daughter of a wealthy,...
