When we are first introduced to Louisa she is peeking in at the circus, “what did he behold but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole in the deal board.” this is symbolic and shows that she is longing to experience more than just facts and science that she has been brought up with. Her father believes in teaching children “Nothing but facts” because he figures that you will never need fancy or imagination in the real world. She instinctively seeks out fun and fancy whenever she can, Dickens brings her across as a model reason why her father’s “facts facts, facts!” idea is not a good one.
After she is caught peeking into the circus her father repeats, “What would Mr Bounderby say?” this affects Louisa and makes you wonder who Mr Bounderby is. Mr Bounderby is a powerful citizen of Coketown, he is a greedy capitalist and his name is slang for ‘cad’ which is what he is. He is attracted to Louisa and wants to marry her. He repulses Louisa and when he kissed her she looked away and rubbed her cheek for 5 minutes, when her brother, Tom says “You’ll rub a hole in your face” she says that if he cut it out with a penknife, she wouldn’t cry.
Louisa is very close to Tom, and at first he is the only person she cares about, and she decides to marry Mr Bounderby because of him. She talks to Tom about what she feels and opens up to him and explains what she feels, she also talks to him about fancy, which she wouldn’t do to anybody else, she also talks about how she feels about Sissy to him. But Tom is eventually self-centred and insensitive towards everyone including Louisa and is portrayed as a hypocrite.
Louisa’s mother is a hypochondriac, she is constantly ill or says she is, this is her way of hiding from people and ultimately hiding her feelings, she is pale and weak from her relationship with her husband, she is an example of what the “facts” and quite often disregards Louisa and uses the excuse that she is ill as a reason not to speak to her daughter. She is ignorant of Louisa’s struggle, which she has probably experienced herself. Louisa doesn’t seem to need her mother and has probably grown up without her.
Mr Gradgrind loves his children and genuinely feels that the “facts” method is a good one, which his children would thank him for teaching them. He teaches them nothing but facts and expects them to grow up and be important and respected members of society as he is. And when he finds them peeking at the circus he is so shocked because he doesn’t understand why they would want to see the circus with everything they have.
Louisa is a attractive and sensitive, and curious to the world of imagination that her father has never let her know. She is chaffing against her upbringing and has a “starved imagination” was can see this from when we first meet her and Dickens describes her as “Pretty. Would have been self willed but for her bringing up” which I think is very true, her father’s method of teaching children has left her almost dead mentally and tired and she says “I am tired.” She hides her emotion that is making her tired and depressed, she seems as if she daydreams quite a bit. I think that she would be a very different person if it wasn’t for her upbringing, she would be more caring and loving, as would Tom. I think she is caring and loving but she hides it inside with all her emotions. I’m interested to see what will happen to her, I would like to see her get married to someone nice and get away from her father but I think she will marry Mr Bounderby and end up being very depressed. But I hope she doesn’t because Louisa is a very interesting and complex character who will develop well.
