The extract is taken from Charles Dickens' Hard Times. It offers a clear idea of the education (one of the most frequent topic in Victorian novel) and children's life-style. In addiction, the text better shows the philosophy of Utilitarianism, a trend of thought but also a political and economic doctrine which influences all Victorians. Utilitarianism relies heavly on statistics, rules and regulation, and sets above individualism and imagination. Thomas Grandgrind, the protagonist, reflects all these aspects.

In the first section someone presents the character through the technique of telling: "A man of realities. A man of fact and calculations". Right from the start the narrator explains the reader there's no space, no room for any other perspective but the factual ("a man of realities"), mathematical ("a man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four") and arithmetical one ("a case of simple arithmetic"). Even when he talks about nature he adops economic and mathematic words ("ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature"). Therefore the repetition and the expansion make Thomas Gradgrind a caricature.

In the second part of the extract the protagonists is describe through the tecnique of shown by the dialogue between his students. The reader immediately understands dikens uses only word referring to capitalism (business, demand). Here his materialistic mentality is again conveied: indeed he doesn't consider children as human being but only as numbes (according to the Utilitarianism). For Thomas Gradgrind, Sissy (one of his students) is not a name, and in this way, he refuses her identity. As a matter of fact, the protaconist calles Sissy Jupe as "girl number tweny". He doesn't know anything temp but imperative: that's why he wants to be like a distant God who says what is good and what is wrong, who rules upon inferior people (children).