One of the teachers is known as “Mr M’Choakumchild”, another attempt by Dickens to satirise the education system by saying that the children are choked by fact.
There is irony in comically referring to the fairy tale Forty Thieves to compare with the regimented education system keen to disregard and destroy fancy. The children are described as
“little vessels ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim”,
showing how the education they are to be given is very emotionless, they are simply machines in the process. Dickens opinion of the system continues as he calls the second chapter, “Murdering the Innocents”. He is suggesting that by depriving the children’s minds of fancy will eventually ruin them, a theme shown through Gradgrind’s children. The use of terms like “girl number twenty” in the school contributes to the discrediting of the system as it shows a robotic and unnatural way of teaching that produces children like Bitzer who can define horses as “Quadruped, Graminivorous“. Bitzer is described as “light and cold”, an idea repeated throughout the novel. The light from the sun passes through him unable to enhance his soulless features. Dickens wanted Victorian readers to realise that their education system was wrong and so portray Bitzer as a heartless boy, one which Dickens’ readers would not like to see their children as. Bitzer is an embodiment of the callous Gradgrind education system. He is only interested in himself, which he admits to when saying,
“I have only one to feed, and that’s the person I most like to feed”,
and which is exemplified at the end of the novel, where he discards Mr Gradgrind’s plea to let Tom go because he wants Tom’s job at the bank. Through Bitzer, Dickens shows and attacks the worst effect of Utilitarianism and the issue of self-interest.
Dickens also satirises self-interest through Tom Gradgrind. From early on in the novel, it is clear that he will use people for his own purpose, even his sister who loves him. His upbringing has left him very bitter and resentful as he says,
“I wish I could collect all the Facts… and blow them all up…I’ll have my revenge”.
He cunningly uses his sister’s love to force her to marry the unpleasant Bounderby to ensure his future position in the Bank. Tom shows no guilt about robbing the bank to pay his gambling debts and then implicating Stephen Blackpool, an innocent man. Tom's actions indirectly lead to Stephen's death. He is a “whelp” from start to end; even when he is discovered as the robber he shows no sign of repenting, and instead blames and rejects Louisa, who he feels has turned him in. Dickens informs us at the end of the novel that he dies alone and this indirectly is a cause of the mechanical upbringing received.
Louisa Gradgrind is another example through which Dickens can show the detrimental effect of the Utilitarian system. She is a victim. Even as a child she is aware there is something missing from her life - love and emotion – as she exclaims,
“I have been tired a long time”,
the education and life she has been given has meant she could “never wonder”, and she lacks the language associated with emotions and the imagination. She is dead to all feeling, apart from her love for Tom which leads her to sacrifice her life for him. Unlike Tom, there is potential for Louisa to develop her sensitivity and passion. She admits to “unmanageable thoughts that will wonder”, and when she stares into the fire she feels an inner-passion. She attempts to express her feelings when her father approaches her with the idea of marrying Bounderby,
“What are my heart’s experiences?”
“I never had a child’s heart”,
which her father misunderstands, Dickens wants to warn the reader about the unnatural aims and effects of Utilitarianism. As is later revealed
“It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to paid for”,
which Mr Gradgrind eventually discovers throughout the novel. His son Tom has brought shame to the family by robbing the bank, and in consequence is sent to live abroad alone, and his daughter Louisa, forced into a convenient marriage and made to turn to Harthouse for comfort, ends up falling at her father’s feet,
“the pride of his heart and the triumph of his system, lying, an insensible heap, at his feet.”
The reform of Mr Gradgind is brought about by the failure of his children.
