Coketown

This is an extract written by Charles dickens.

Dickens provides an apparently positive judgement by describing Coketown as a “Triumph of fact”. To tell the truth, it is just a pretext to create a contrast that reminds to the double face of the Victorian Age.

The description is from a materialistic point of view and at first, the novelist appeals to sight. Indeed he describes the city using the expression “an unnatural black and red” that are also colours of damnation. To reinforce the false and damned nature of the town he adds “like the painted face of a savage”.

Brutality and sadness are the two feelings conveyed by the description.

Is interesting to notice that the novelist refers to the religious code and the smoke that comes out from chimneys is described as a serpent. Serpent is a symbol of the devil in the puritan vision.

The sentence “canal is black and the river is purple and smelly” suggests an image of a city destroyed by pollution.

The onomatopoeic sound of the words “rattling” and “trembling” expresses the monotony of life that is reinforced by the anaphoric use of the adjective “same”. Everything looked at the same.

The anaphoric repetition of the word “fact” gives an idea of artificial and people seem to have lost their identities as if they are machines.

The horrible and suffocated atmosphere is in contrast with all the “comforts” and “elegancies” linked to the higher class.

This is a world based on appearances and devoid of values, the concept is supported by the expression “sacred to fact”.

All this is in contrast with Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby that represent a little portion of the society wealthy “gentleman” “eternally dissatisfied”.

Using the contrasts between people, the exaggeration of tones, hyperboles and the grotesque, the novelist wants to criticize the society and the conditions of living in Great Britain in the Victorian Age.