Notes of the 14th/05/2012

“Coketown”  from Hard Times

It’s an extract on the way with Dickens writes. He uses language in a superb way. In the extract the intelligent reader understands narrative technique is extremely important. There’s an omniscient narrator. The name “Coketown” immediately reminds to who is employed in factory. Also the name become symbolical of the polluted situation. First element, first impression is the fact that the town was in red brick. The red color is a leitmotiv in the novel. The narrator speaks about pollution using the metonymy: he employs the term “dark” referring to the smoke, the ashes produced by the machines work all day long. The term “unnatural” means artificial and recalls the term “painted”.  “Natural” is in contrast with “unnatural”, and “unnatural” is linked to “painted”. This is an intelligent use of language. Mr. Dickens creates a comparison with the savages: the savage is the person who doesn’t conform to the rules (J. J. Rousseau wrote an essay about the good savage). The language of the novel uses sense, in particular the sight.

Dickens’ aim is the description of the industrial work and the result of the Industrial Revolution. The image “serpent of smokes” compares the city to the tempter of Eve and Adam, meaning humanity lost his Paradise. Here is underlined also the loosing of knowledge, described in the biblical episode. The industrial city has here a phallic representation, with the unbroken movement of up and down. In this there is also an idea of monotony and suffocation strengthened by the anaphoric use of the language. Repetition underlines the monotony and recreates the description of a very poor architectural design of the town. There’s a sense of alienation in Coketown: people have become like another, everything is the same. Even the noise is always the same and there are always repetitive actions. In the city everything is artificial, there aren’t natural elements, and what is worse is that there is no improvement. The description of the work is metaphorical and the sustain is Puritanism.