Set in the industrial city of Coketown, the story revolves around Thomas Gradgrind, who raises his children, Louisa and Tom, with a strict focus on facts, suppressing their emotions and imagination. Louisa enters an unhappy marriage with the selfish banker Josiah Bounderby to help Tom, who works at Bounderby’s bank but later commits crimes, including theft, and blames the honest worker Stephen Blackpool. By the end, Gradgrind realizes the harm caused by his rigid philosophy and embraces the value of compassion and imagination.