Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
Analysis of Tocqueville’s Manchester
From the reading of title the reader supposes the text will deal with Manchester’s description.
The test is organized in six paragraphs, each one has different length.
The first paragraph has the function to introduce Manchester town with a general description which starts from the bottom to overlooking. Suddenly the narrator introduces the opposition of the tranquil and lazy waters with the capricious force of human liberty to make the reader mark a turning point of the description. Indeed in the second paragraph the writer starts the text with the harsh sound r in the alliterative and assonant words thirty or forty factories rise. The harsh sound underlines the contrast between the power of human being’s buildings and the natural two streams, river, little hills of the previous paragraph. The human power is underlighted by the syntax and the length of the second paragraph. Factories rise on the tops of the hill, so they tower above the hills on syntactical level and on vertically location. Following on the reading of the text the contrasts continue(wretched dwelling, land uncultivated… - huge enclousures , huge palaces of industry…).
The second paragraph is focused on the exterior condition of Manchester, instead of the third one deals with human condition of living. In the text the word haphazard is repeated two times, and it gives the idea of confusion.
The atmosphere is created by the use of words which appeals to senses : heaps of dung, rubble from buildings, putrid, stagnant pools…the fetid, muddy waters…the noise of furnaces, the whistle of steam…The footsteps of a busy crowd, the crunching wheels of machinery, the shriek of steam from boilers, the regular beat of the looms, the heavy rumble of carts…; which are totally in contrast with the description of going slowly nature in the first paragraph.
As a result the reader understands the text is developed on the oppositions. Indeed if he follows to read the repetitions and the structure of the phrases underline them: here is the slave, there the master; there is the wealth of some, here the poverty of most; there the organised efforts of thousands produce, to the profit of one man…Here the weakness of the individual…
The fourth paragraph is very short. But it is enough to create the image of darkness where the labourers work. The colour black of the smoke means smog, smell but also sadness and poverty. The narrator insert information of working people’s number and he seems to say they were only a numbers and objects to make wealth and money for only one man.
In the last propositions are symmetrical, they start with from this.. from this…here.. here, so the reader understand the narrator is going to give a conclusion. There are a repetition of sound f to underline the continuous factories’ work (From …foul ..flows out…fertilise …. From… filthy …flows..) but this continuous flowing took with itself, in addition to wealth and development, the civilized men to inhumanity, as a consequence human beings can’t be called humans but savages. So development in industrial doesn’t coincide with human and civilization development.
The text starts with a neutral description, but the narrator isn’t able to not judge.
Analysis of Dickens’ essay from Hard Times
The title of the book makes the reader understand the narrator is going to talk about an hard period of his life. Reading the first word it is clear hard times is referred to people’s life in Coketown in 1854, when the text was written.
Dickens informs immediately Coketown is an invented name, but what the reader is going to read isn’t fancy.
The intelligent reader understands the name of the town is referred to industrialization, indeed coke is fuel, which is very important in the period where the text is written: the 19th century is a period of development on machinery innovations. So Coketown is a “nickname” for a city of England which “knew” the Industrial Revolution.
Immediately the narrator creates the atmosphere of an industrialized town which is invaded by smoke and smell of machinery. He give a judgment to define the colors of Coketown; according to him red and black are colors of savages’ faces, who are tanned and dirty. These colors are also connected to devil, in particular red is the color of blood while black is the one of the darkness.
An another color is present in the text that is the purple; the river that ran purple so it’s evident the atmosphere of pollution dues to the chimneys and machinery that work continuously for ever and ever. As a consequence the reader understands the narrator’s negative judgment of the town.
The reference to devil is also in the analogy between the form of smoke and the serpent.
The narrator seems he thought Coketown is work of the devil.
The description of town became a chaotic mass of continuous noises and smells. The repetition of words one another, same and time’s references underlines the continuity and it suggests the sameness of working people’s days. All things and all people were identical each one to each other, like the products of the factories. The Victorian society was dominated by industrialization and money. The only important things were the material ones, all the same. The society was governed by Utilitarianism and the repetition of word fact underlights this.
People have lost their individuality and they are equally like one another and they look like robots, they are alienated.
The narrator described all things by a materialistic point of view, indeed the facts triumphs on Coketown, which is the archetype of a capitalistic town.