Hard Times (novel) Gradgrind - a younger sister of Tom and Louisa Gradgrind who spends a lot of time with Sissy Jupe. She is cheerful, affectionate and despite looking similar to Louisa, in personality she is opposite. Dickens wished to educate readers about the working conditions of some of the factories in the industrial towns of Manchester, and Preston, to "strike the heaviest blow in my power", and as well to confront the assumption that prosperity runs parallel to morality. This notion he systematically deconstructed in through his portrayal of the moral monsters, Mr. Bounderby and James Harthouse. Dickens also believed in the
Peter Gerald Charles Dickens Peter Gerald Charles Dickens Captain Peter Gerald Charles Dickens DSO, MBE, DSC, RN (6 April 1917 – 25 May 1987) was a Royal Navy officer during World War II and a great-grandson of novelist Charles Dickens. The son of Admiral Sir Gerald Charles Dickens and Kathlen Pearl Birch, Peter Dickens was born in Fulham in London in 1917. Dickens joined the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in September 1934, being promoted to Midshipman in May 1935 when he was serving aboard HMS Nelson in the Home Fleet. Dickens was Acting Sub-Lieutenant in September 1937 and Sub-Lieutenant in May 1938