C. Dickens- COKETOWN

C.Dickens titled the extract Coketown. The reader can immediately see the word  “coke”, a type of fuel of steam engines, one of the most important productions during the Industrial Revolution. This make evident to the reader that Coketown may be an industrialized city in the North of England. At the beginning Dickens introduce two people walking towards Coketown, then he starts describing the city. Indeed there are a lot of symbols within the text to enrich the description of the town.  The reader can notice the materialistic way of describing the city: entirely described through senses. The narrator lists the colors of the city: red and black, the city appears monotonous not only in colour but also in sound: the noises are all the same. Also people are monotonous: they act and look like robots, people have lost their personality and their identity. The reader can notice the double face of Coketown, indeed the city is full of contradictions; on one side there are bricks and ashes, on the other wealth and money. The double face of Coketown reminds the double nature of capitalism, that is quite the same. Religion is very important for citizens shown by the image of the Church at the centre of the town. The multifaceted nature of Coketown underlined in the extract shows all the contradictions in industrialization and capitalism.

Manchester, Toqueville

Toqueville starts the text with a description of the setting, the appearance of Manchester, starting from the natural landscape. Then he compares this to the artificial one. the narrator unveils his pessimistic point of view about human impact on nature.

In the second paragraph the narrator focuses the reader attention on the characteristic of Manchester: the industrialized nature. the third one deals with human condition of living: the atmosphere in this city is dark.

The description continues with the consequences of the industrialization underlining  its contradictory faced-nature: it provided wealth without well-being.

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.