In …show more content…
Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main character represents utilitarianism within the novel. He is obsessed with facts alone; he does not want any kind of entertainment and recreation as he considers it useless and a waste of time. But one do need recreation and some sort of excitement in one’s life like the circus as he is a human being and not a machine. Gradgrind raises his children Tom and Louisa to learn facts and nothing else, no entertainment, no fancy, no circus. He is obsessed to and devote his life to the study of basing actions and opinion on reason and knowledge rather than believing on religious practice and belief or emotional respond and feelings. Thus, his son Tom turn into a hedonist and egoist, he became a gambler and a thief while his daughter Louisa become emotionally stunted and became too full of herself that she is unable to connect with …show more content…
Louisa was married to the old Josiah Bounderby and never again married after he married him. Thomas Gradgrind let his daughter marries Bounderby as he thought it would be good for her, he was considering the facts only and the profit she sold get in term of materials without considering the emotions of Louisa. Even Louisa was accepting to marry old Bounderby as she has no lover, also she tries to see everything numerically maybe through science or through statistical solutions and to consider life only on Utilitarian terms because she was taught like that, she is a woman of knowledge and knows the numerical values of thing but fails to consider her emotions and feelings. And her brother Tom who she considers most important in her life tells her that it would profit him if she marries