Through the course of the plot, Blackpool is found to have suffered many trials in life together with a matrimony to a drunk and the ill-fated love of a woman he cannot wed. He is even unwanted and disliked by his own class because of his denial to join an union with his fellow factory workers due to his belief that the trade union rebel is a fake prophet. In the end he defends the employees against thoughtless words spoken

Freud and Marx are not satisfied either with the present conditions facing them and their culture. Dickens embraces similar ideas of Marx and personifies them through his two characters, Blackpool and Tom Gradgrind. Blackpool’s personality, struggles and relationships with others represent Marx’s concept of the oppressed worker while Tom’s symbolize our need to rebel and our battles with guilt. Each individual is a product of his time. Marx and Dickens are products of their times as well in that they have a distrust of the current traditions; this pessimism is depicted in their lives’ works. And in the end, we realize, art and literature express the chaos of their era.

Tom is the son of Thomas Gradgrind, Sr., a factual man only interested with pure facts. Therefore, Tom is brought up in a utilitarian environment: taught never to question, doubt facts or consider any kind of fancy. In the novel Hard Times he is part of the middle class and only has love for one human being, his sister, Louisa. His sister’s husband employs him in the bank but Tom interests himself more with revolt since he is finally away from the truthful background of his youth. Thus Tom enters into betting and drink. Unfortunately for him, his bets never earn him any cash and he finds himself frequently asking his sister for aid. Her attachment to her brother forces her to provide him what he asks until he has simply taken too much. In need of money, he stages a bank robbery and places the guilt on the honest Blackpool. Eventually found out, he is forced into banish where he repents and asks his sister for forgiveness.

The discipline of fact Tom was associated with at an early age limited most of the natural instincts common to children and teenagers. Once he has the opening to enter the real world, he revolts due to his discontent with his education: “..when I go to live with old Bounderby I’ll have my revenge...I mean I’ll enjoy myself a little and go about and hear something. I’ll recompense myself for the way in which I have been brought up.” (Hard Times, pg. 49). He has by no means been given the chance to express himself in more than fact, so for him, happiness means the completion of those opportunities; he sees happiness in everything that did not engage his bringing up Harthouse, an admirer of Louisa in the novel Hard Times, identifies this need Tom experiences and expresses it to Louisa. “...he [Tom] has not been fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage towards the society in which he has a part to play, he rushes these extremes for himself from opposite extremes that have long been forced upon him.” (Hard Times, pg. 161). Tom’s education is poor and its lack causes him to completely wander from his school of thought. He does it suddenly and powerfully with every purpose of wandering away as far as possible from it. His education of fact was poor for the real world and unfortunately he did not have the skills to handle with reality. For

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