Charles Dickens' novel, Hard Times, is a story of two struggles--the struggle of fact versus imagination and the struggle between two classes. It takes place in Coketown, and industrial-age English city. The novel is divided into two sections. One deals with the struggle of upper class members of society and their struggle to learn the value of imagination. The other involves a working class man who is trapped by those in that upper class who …showed first 75 words of 361 total…

…showed last 75 words of 361 total…and middle classes were not just two different classes, but two different worlds. The book concludes with the upper class characters being forced into accepting that something other than facts exist. Thomas Gradgrind has given up his philosophy of facts by allowing his daughter back into his house.         In conclusion, the entire Gridgrind system of facts proves to be a failure, and he learns that emotions and imagination are the controlling forces in everyones life.