C. Dickens – Hard Times: Analyses

Hard Times is a novel written by C. Dickens (1854) and it describes a fictional town, Coketown, in the newly industrialized North of England.

The narration is made up by a 3^rd person omniscient intrusive narrator, who doesn’t let the reader create himself his own ideas about the events.

The way the novelist describes the city (using anaphora and repetitions) recalls the idea of an anonymous place in which identities are lost. Besides the use of the colours are suitable to convey the idea of an artificial city: on the one side, red is symbol of blood, fire and passion, and on the other one black recalls death, damnation, hell, sin and darkness.

Another important thing is the name of the city: Coketown, which refers to the Industrial Revolution and the importance of fuel into the industrial processes.