The Industrial Monotony of Coketown in Charles Dickens's 'Hard Times', Dispense di Inglese

Scarica The Industrial Monotony of Coketown in Charles Dickens's 'Hard Times' e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! COKETOWN It is a passage taken from the fifth chapter of the first book of Dicken’s novel “Hard times”. In this passage Dickens describes Coketown, the city where the novel is set and were Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby are walking. Coketown is described as the truth of fact and there is not space for fancy. In this city all the building are made of red bricks which ashes and smoke coming out from the factories chimneys made black. The black and red bricks are compared to the painted face of a savage. In this city there is also a river which pollution made purple. It is an industrial city and there are a lot of factories where the steam engine moved like the head of a mad elephant. The city appears monotonous not only in the colours but also in the sounds, in the noises, in the buildings, in the streets: large and small streets look all the same as the monotonous life of Coketown’s workers. People have lost their personality, their individuality: they are equally like one another and look like robots. Every good created in Coketown makes the life of middle-class members comfortable and pleasant: the fine lady benefits from the products of this town. In this city everything is based on facts according to the Utilitarian philosophy and the material attitude, there is no taste for beauty and the churches were built using red bricks. Here all the buildings look the same: the schools, the hospital and the cemetery. In this city the children were educated only through facts according to the Utilitarian philosophy and the name of the school M'Choakumchild sound like the phrase “choke the child” because children are seen as containers to full through facts. Dickens wonders about who attended Saturday services. The people who attended the religious services are all the people except the workers. The middle class wanted to force them to go to the Church through some parliamentary acts. The Teetotal Society complained about the fact that the workers used to get drunk; the chemist and the druggist complained that, when they do not get drunk, they took opium. Instead, the chaplain of the jail complained that the working class attended low places. In the end, Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby complained about the lower class that is never thankful for what it has that only eat the prime parts of meat, fresh butter and Mocha coffee. Dickens aim is to denounce the effects of the Utilitarians and materialistic attitude which made the life of working class monotonous. The workers are alienated and exploited. The is an obtrusive and omniscient narrator, he comments the story.