Hard Times Chapters 4-5

In which we are introduced to the coarse and boastful Mr. Bounderby, a self-made man whose loud proclamations of humble origins contrast with his overbearing manner, while the Gradgrind household wrestles with the stirrings of imagination and feelings forbidden in their purely factual upbringing. We then journey to the grim industrial town of Coketown, a realm of unyielding facts and rote existence, where the human spirit struggles beneath the weight of toil, and the mysteries of curiosity and compassion begin to weave their subtle threads.