COKETOWN –Charles Dickens

The narrative extract is about Coketown, the setting in which the novel by Charles Dickens Hard Times takes place.

Narrator: omniscient

INTERPRETATION

Right from the start the place is defined as “a triumph of fact”: everything in the town strikes the mind of the reader because of its material, concrete aspect. “Red bricks” of houses are of unnatural red, as a consequence of the grey smoke coming from the chimneys of factories. The image of “interminable serpents of smoke” recalls the continuous and almost infinite work of industrial buildings: the move becomes monotonous, and even people are deprived of their individual identity. Since scenes are displayed rapidly, the whole extract is permeated by a suffocating atmosphere. Moreover, the use of short sentences underlines the pragmatic aspect of the main subject.

LANGUAGE

Repetitions convey the idea of monotony and accumulation of material objects. Examples from the text: “streets like one another-people like one another”, “the same sound-the same pavements-the same hours”: the repeated phrases stick in the mind of the reader the idea of equality and abolition of individualism.

Words efficiently display how people are compelled to conform and do the same actions. “Fact, fact, fact – all fact”: everywhere the material aspect of the town is predominant, even religious buildings.

Frequent similes provide the reader with several images of the same concept. As an example, the piston of the steam engine (symbol of the industrial revolution) move up and down “like the head of an elephant in state of melancholy madness”: the simile emphasizes the monotonous movement that does never stop, and the continuous move could drive people crazy. Why people could become mad? Because the excessive and almost obsessive interest in working and producing more and more is creating insane principles/conceptions/values.

The onomatopoeic use of language reinforces the concept of accumulation of material and concreteness; “rattling and trembling” create sounds which envelop the whole town, they perfectly convey the image of constant industrialization and production.

The narrative technique of the grotesque allows the writer to reshape the conventional aspect of an object; for example, short pinnacles of a church (religious element) become “florid wooden legs” (material aspect).

The continuous contrast between material and immaterial is clear in the allusion to religious mansions after the description of industrial buildings. In addition a further opposition between damnation and purity is created by the juxtaposition of colours black and white: “severe characters of black and white” were painted in the town.