Hard Times Another Brick In The Wall Analysis

Noah St.Onge

Professor Scrivener

ENG 2210

12/16/2015

Hard Times: Another Brick in the Wall

During the late 1700's and early 1800's England experiences a technological and economic boom. This time period is known as the Industrial Revolution and it brought wealth and power to the population. New industries were born and with that came even further advancement in machinery and process. Goods were more widely available and were produced in better quality. This golden age had many adverse effects, however. Pollution, overcrowding, sickness, and lifestyle changes rippled though the landscape and population of England. Factory workers spent more time working and earned less money. Daily routines shaped into three steps with no variation; work,

eat, sleep, repeat. Life was monotonous and unfulfilling because workers had no extra time to invest in matters other than work or sleep. In Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times this is illustrated with the city of Coketown. Dickens' city of Coketown is a representation of the negative and destructive aspects of the Industrial Revolution and the social environment that sustained it.
The city of Coketown is disgusting and full of pollution. The river that flows through the town has taken on the color of black and has a horrid stench. "It had a black anal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye..."20). The emphasis on pollution in the water by Dickens is still relevant today. From the start of the industrial revolution disposing of the waste from the chemical processes has been an issue, while it is cheap and easy for the factories to dump toxic chemicals and waste into rivers or lakes, doing so causes and chain reaction of destructive events in the surrounding area. People who waded into the toxic water could suffer a range of side effects from irritation and rashes to cancer and death. The atmosphere of Coketown is replete with smoke and soot. A black haze blankets the city of Coketown while billowing clouds of smoke and soot puff from the chimneys of factories all over the town. Dickens describes the plumes of smoke in Hard Times as "interminable serpents of smoke"(20). Historically, serpents have been a symbol of evil in literature. One popular example is of the serpent Lucifer in the tale of Adam and Eve in the Bible. The serpent is the one who convinces Eve to do wrong, and she suffers for it. Describing the smoke as serpents portrays some grasp of evil or wrongdoing on the town. Through the pollution of the city Dickens is illustrating the great advancements had destructive effects that would heavily impact the citizens.
Realistically the Industrial Revolution did more harm than good for the majority of the English population. In the late 18th century the revolution was so new that there were no regulations or laws for the new industries. This allowed for many practices viewed as horrible atrocities to be used legally and continuously, for example, child labor. Factory owners were able to pay children roughly one-tenth of what they would pay a man. For this reason, many factory owners sought to populate their workforces with as many children as possible to save money. Children had many other uses to the factory owners than just cheap labor. The small hands of children were able to fit into the machinery and fix issues in the machines, and the children were easier to manipulate than adults. Children were prone to being obedient without question and therefore would not be as likely to create or join unions. During the time that Dickens was writing Hard Times he visited the city of Preston which was undergoing a large-scale strike. The strike lasted eight months and moved Dickens in regard to the negligence of factory and mine owners of their workers. An essay from the Norton Critical Edition of Hard Times states, "So deeply was he stirred, in fact, that he inserted into the proof sheets of Hard Times a footnote specifically recommending this magazine article to the attention of his readers." (288).
Working in industrialized cities also had effects outside of factory life, the living conditions and quality of life deteriorated as a result of the urbanization of England.

Houses were constructed in confined areas with no space for ventilation, houses had no system to maneuver waste away from the drinking water or living spaces. The destitute flocked to "poorhouses" set up by the government, however, even those were designed to force the poor back out on the street. The lack of sanitation and overcrowding allowed for widespread disease. "Cholera, tubercluosis, typhus, typhoid, and influenze ravaged through new industial towns, especially in poor working-class neighborhoods." ("Introduction to the Industrial Revolution"). During the time Dickens wrote Hard Times all of these harsh realities he would have seen first hand. Watching the poor workers live in anguish and suffering must have grown his disdain for the Industrial Revolution. Hard Times would have been inspired by real world events that he personally witnessed on a day-to-day

basis.
The polluted city of Coketown is not only filthy, it is ugly as well. The town as a whole is unplanned and has no form. Buildings and other structures seem to pop up sporadically. The railway that runs through the town has neighborhoods half built up and half torn down. Originally made of the same red brick that everything else was constructed from, all buildings have turned gray from the downpour of ash. Standing on the outside, it would be nearly impossible to discern the nature of different buildings because they all had the same structure. Dickens describes the buildings as "a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage."(?). The use of the word savage invokes feelings of brutality, barbarism, and alienation. Using this description Dickens is illustrating the irony of a technologically advanced society being primitive and barbaric in some ways. One aspect of the underlying primitive nature of Coketown is the attitudes of the rich factory owners.
The city's population is also emotionally ugly. The rich factory owners do not care about the workers health or well-being. Being paid so little by the factory owners meant the workers could not afford to buy food that they would need to sustain such a high level of activity. As a result of the lack of nutritionally balanced food, most of the population suffered from malnutrition. The horrible reality is that the rich were well-aware of this issue but simply did not care. To an extent, workers were treated like they were just beasts of work. The workers are measured exactly for their horsepower, the stronger the worker, the more useful he was. They are treated as tools without feelings and are never consulted in matters that concern them, workers have no time for things of leisure or emotion. In a utilitarian society based on fact the workers must conform with the ideals of the powerful in order to survive. It is also said that they are told to not spend any time on "recreating themselves" and just to do as they are told without asking questions. The factory owners have the mentality that the workers are just lazy and want money and luxury without actually working for it. This is shown by Bounderby's saying that all the workers want is turtle soup and a golden spoon. It is also considered an extravagant luxury when the workers have real butter, fresh bread, sugar or tea. The rich in Coketown also believe that everything either is or should be the result of a rational calculation. This mentality adds to the ugliness both socially and physically in Coketown. The ugliness of Coketown creates an area where the poor have everything taken away from them materialistically and emotionally. They must take everything on faith and just stick to the facts that the owners fabricate for their own benefit.
The description of Coketown makes it clear that it is a city that emphasizes dull and repetitive labor.

Each day bells sound to signal the arrival of the workers to their humdrum duty in the factories. Each individual's responsibility was the same day in day out. Monotony bleeds from each aspect of the physical and social parts of the city. The streets are the same, the buildings look the same, the workers continue the same tasks at the same time and stick to the same routine. The emphasis of the sameness of everything including the workers works to show how the humans and machines blend together. The tedious and repetitive style of the work contributes to the image Dickens paints of Coketown; work in the factories are turning the humans into the machines they service. "The spiritual sphere is completely neglected in this type of society. People have, therefore, undergone a process of alienation: they have been transformed into machines...They have been deprived of their human warmth and lost their emotions and sentiments." ("Dickens and Popular Entertainment" 10). Drawing a parallel between the monotony of machines and the mechanization of the workers shows Dickens' view of the industrial revolution in a compelling light. The residents of Coketown are also portrayed as the same as one another. Individuality is not a characteristic that is valued by the city nor the residents of

Coketown.

Works Cited
Dickens, Charles, Fred Kaplan, and Sylvère Monod. Hard Times: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. Print.
"Hard Times." Dickens And Popular Entertainment (1985): n. pag. Web. 12 Dec. 2015. .
"Introduction to the Industrial Revolution." Introduction to the Industrial Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2015. .