In sharp contrast to the bleak and gray industrial setting of Coketown, the circus in Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times is full of life, color, and character. In Hard Times, the circus therefore symbolizes the opposite of everything Coketown and the Industrial Revolution represent. For instance, the circus workers are fanciful and free; the factory workers, on the other hand, are drones who drudge through each day. Similarly, the performers demonstrate a cooperative, communal, and compassionate attitude, whereas the industrialists denote rampant individualism, greed, and self-centeredness. The circus represents a diversion from the mundane, a realm of pure imagination, whereas the factories of Coketown are nothing but mundane and are entirely lacking in imagination. To specific characters in Hard Times, Sleary's circus symbolizes several different and often conflicting ideas. For Tom and Louisa, and eventually for Gradgrind, Sleary's circus is a bastion of hope and a means of salvation in a cruel and oppressive world. Although Sleary's circus initially represents everything Gradgrind eschews: irrationality and fancy, eventually he comes to appreciate and embrace the nontraditional and nonconformist circus lifestyle and philosophy. Therefore, Sleary's circus serves an important role juxtaposing industrialism and romanticism in Hard Times, representing social and political philosophies that are directly antagonistic to modernization.

             As an age-old and timeless tradition, the circus threatens the modernist mentality represented especially by Bounderby in the book. Throughout much of the novel, Gradgrind is similarly caught up in modernist philosophy, characterized by unabashed materialism, selfishness, and pure rationality. The circus represents the opposite of everything Bounderby and Gradgrind believe in and therefore they persecute and shun circus life, circus performers, and the circus mentality.