IN CHANCERY

Starting from the title, one can not have particular expectations, since there are no elements which suggest something more than a simple building. Considering structure, the extract is divided into two longer paragraphs and three shorter ones. The sequences are mainly descriptive and there are no dialogues. For what concern content, almost the entire text is based on the description of an incredibly black, dirty and industrialized town, where there seems to be no human touch. The city is the perfect reflection of industrialization, and the reader immediately understands it since the elements which dominate the scene are mud, fog, chimneys, sood, cabooses, firesides, gas. The elements which characterize the scene make the reader imagine a dark town, obscured by the smoke coming from the chimneys, a town where no natural light shines in and where human element has reached his lowest point. Fog and smoke contribute to cover the city under a sort of aura of mistery.

In the last part, all what had been described before comes to life again surrounding temple bar, which seems to be the symbol of the city:"The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar". Here the first human being is presented: Lord High Chancellor. Although the narrator doesn't describe him physically or emotionally, the reader perceives him as the highest chief, the highest representer of the dark, obscure, goggy, muddy, dirty, mechanized, inhuman town.

The narrator is a third person one and it is not clear if he's omniscent. However, he moves like a flying eye among the city districts and streets and describes the reader what he sees, even the most apparently insignificant particualar like the footsteps people leave on the streets.

The overall effect conveyed is the critical attitude the author seems to express towards the Victorian society, living under the Industrial Recolution which is making people slave of wealth, profit and market.

It is not easy to identify an ideal reader, but since the extract belongs to a novel it could be an interesting and "funny" way to live the Victorian age for readers of every age.