Monday, October 22, 2012

The Ferocious Fire of Coketown - Question 1

Unit: 5
HT: Analyzation
"Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of its own, which appeared impervious to the sun's rays. You only knew the town was there, because you knew there could have been no such sulky blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and fell, or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness: - Coketown in the distance was suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be seen." (111).

The description of Coketown displays the town as polluted and unclean. It is so polluted that it is difficult to tell whether there is a town there or not. The smoke and "sulky blotch" signals that in fact, there is a town there. The smoke of the factories dominates the town and everyone seems to be caught in it. Dickens describes the town as if he was standing from a distance observing the overview of the town. He gives a play-by-play description of the smoke that "tends this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now murkily creeping a long the earth." The metaphor used to describe the smoke "aspiring to the vault of Heaven" shows that it ascends endlessly into the sky. This adds to the factories domination of the town, because they have even infected Heaven and the peoples' religion.

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