The main theme of the book is facts, as in, the Victorian education system that taught children to learn and accept only facts and eradicate any sort of sentimentality or imagination in their lives. Even at the beginning we know that it's doomed to fail, just from a small glimpse of Thomas Gradgrind's schoolroom. He drills the facts into the children without teaching them the real life implications of what they're learning, so obviously they'll be totally unprepared for the real world. Gradgrind educates his own children, Louisa and Tom, according to his system, and neither end up successful in life. It's interesting how Dickens explores the different variations on the system, contrasting poor Louisa, whose creativity is eliminated from an early age, and the compassionate Sissy, who fails Gradgrind's system because she's too human in her emotions.
Louisa has all of the imagination squashed out of her, and it leaves her, as she herself recognises, cold and incomplete as a person. She marries Mr Bounderby, a man who abides rigorously by her father's system and is in fact his best friend (as far as his philosophy will allow such open displays of sentimentality). She is, of course, unhappy with him, but is restrained from being with the man she loves by her own crippled emotions.
Young Thomas Gradgrind becomes a thief, and unfairly relies on Louisa to lend him money. He even asks her to marry the DISGUSTING Mr Bounderby for his own benefit, because he recognises Bounderby's fondness for Louisa and knows he can take advantage of that.Mr Gradgrind, however, once he recognises how badly Louisa's been damaged by his system of facts, always facts, does reform. He shelters her and supports her separation from a man who clearly doesn't understand her, which Dickens clearly thinks is the more reasonable outlook on life; he does change his system to make it more lenient, allowing facts to be twinned with compassion and human emotion.
Gradgrind's philosophy creates and shapes Coketown, where the book is set. He's a highly influential person in the society, and builds many factories, passing on his philosophy to his many employees. This is what leads to Stephen Blackpool, the most morally upright and good person in the book, being cast out of the town, and essentially, his death; he hurries back in the dark to clear his name, falls down Old Hell Shaft and dies of his injuries.
From my understanding, I got that Dickens is trying to impose the importance of twinning factual knowledge and emotional knowledge, and, by giving us different examples of the extreme, shows us his view of the correct way to act. Really really brilliant book, lots of plot twists and fantastic writing.
