In the story, Josiah Bounderby, is the owner of a factory. He represents the capitalists. His character brags that he had a horrible life growing up. He explains that his mother left him when he was a child to his grandmother, who was a drunkurd. He says he was a vagabond errand boy who had little education. He exclaims to everyone that he tried hard, that he became the fittest by hard work and now owns a factory. This is our first example of social Darwinistic ideas in the book. In a few chapters after, he boasts proudly of his housekeeper’s exalted station. He calls her his "captive princess" which shows his own achieved superiority. His vision on what poor people dream for is that they "expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon." He doesn’t respect his workers to ever give them a chance. What he does with Stephen Blackpool is tell him that his problems are unimportant and that he is stuck with his own decisions "For better or worse." He then gloats about his money and reminds him that it costs a significant amount of money to poor people to be divorced legally. Bounderby lives in this society by trying to further raise his status in society. He figures that the only wy to be the fittest is by becoming the elite. He later marries Louisa Grangrind, daughter of the owner of the Grangrind school. Thomas Grangrind, the owner is also in Parliament. Marrying Louisa once again feeds his colossal self-esteem. His undoing comes at the end of the story. His mother comes in and says that her son’s story of being a poor uneducated boy growing up was false. In fact, he had a very good education and his parents did have some money. We see that the capitalist way of life has no support of social Darwinism anymore. Bounderby was the only example and now that had been terminated. An interesting point Dickens interrupts the story with is where Bounderby and Louisa go after their honeymoon. They go off to Lyons. Bounderby wants to see how the French got their workers, and if they too "required to be fed with gold spoons." Then they leave on England’s most prized invention of the industrial revolution, the locomotive train. This is bringing in how other cultures are being assimilated in other countries. Dickens decides to point out that Social Darwinism is happening everywhere. The train symbolizes England’s advantage over all other countries. But with adavntage comes more exploitation of workers. They have to make rail roads all over the countryside. A tremendous amount of work and is paid very little.

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