Analysis of the Second Part of the Extract Coketown from Hard Times pg 352

In the second sequence of the extract the narrator describes the buildings of the town. First of all he underlines that every building here is useful: this mirrors the Victorian trend of thought of Utilitarianism. Moreover the narrator addresses to the reader, making feel him as if he were in the town.
The narrator goes on describing the chapels in the town. In Coketown there are eighteen religious believes: again it is underlined the importance of religion during the Victorian Age, but also the tolerance towards other religions. Talking about different religions is only a pretext for the narrator to describe the buildings: chapels are builded like warehouses, with the same red bricks and the same structure, without decorations. It is interesting because chapels have always been builded with a particular attention for decorations or architecture, but here it is not important because there is only an interesting into the function of the buildings. There is only Materialism and it is underlined by the use of a birdcage to contain the bell on the top of the chapel: nothing is thrown away. The only exception is the New Church, that has also some pinnacles. They are ironically compared with "four florid wooden legs": in Coketown everything has an unnatural aspect, while pinnacles are defined "florid".
In this town there is no place for creativity: public inscriptions are all equal, the buildings are all equal and it is not possible to distinguish between the jail, the infirmary or the town hall. The concept is underlined by the language the narrator uses and the verb "might" underlines that nothing is sure, showing a muddle in Coketown inhabitants' mind, even if the town wants to show organization, order and frugality. There is again the idea of Materialism and Utilitarianism because the function of every building is changed during the time.
The concept of Materialism and Utilitarianism is expressed by the repetition of the world "fact": it is repeated for three times (a holy number in religion) to show that material life of people is based on it, and three times again to underline that it also controls immaterial life, that is people's inner reality and consciousness. Everything is fact and organized on it: school, relationship between the master and his workmen... People have not a personality and nothing is made with a personal touch because there is the fear to break up the system and the order. It is for this reason that in Coketown school teaching is based on fact.
It is interesting to notice that the narrator says that "everything was fact between the lying-in hospital to the cemetery": on the one side there is birth and on the other one there is death, so the reader understands that fact is the ideal that rules the whole life of a person and that has to rule the city for eternity. At the same time there is a similarity between these two places: the mothers in the hospital and the dead are both lied. This represents a static life, that can not change and also a life that is like death because people do not really live.
The narrator says at the end of the extract that what is not a fact and state in figures or purchasable in the cheapest market and salable in the dearest does not exist in Coketown: the Materialistic and Utilitarian conception of the world emerges again. There is no place for personal opinions or for the creation of a different and healty town and society. The sentence is very long and has not pauses: it presents the facts in a repetitive and boring way.
The extract ends with the religious word "Amen": the narrator uses here irony to underline that what he has said before is like a religious belief in Coketown, that is not possible to bring into question. It is also a reference to Puritanism trend of thought, very important during the Victorian Age.