Compare and Contrast Dickens's picture of Coketown with Lodge's introduction to the industrial environment in his novel.
English/English Literature Coursework Joint Folder
Wide Reading Assignment:
9th Century Prose: "Hard Times" (Charles Dickens)
20th Century Prose: "Nice work" (David Lodge)
Compare and Contrast Dickens's picture of Coketown with Lodge's introduction to the industrial environment in his novel.
----"Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact everywhere in the immaterial." - Charles Dickens
In the early 1851, London staged the Great Exhibition to show the world, the achievements and inventions of the Industrial Revolution. Many people believed that this showed how much better, safer and healthier Britain was than its neighbours in Europe. People living in mansions amid lawns and fountains, with horse drawn carriages certainly felt that life couldn't be better. However behind the publicity and the royal occasions there was another England, not so glorious. Benjamin Disraeli wrote that Britain was really "two nations", Dickens wanted to show his readers what was behind the glittering façade of Victorian industry. He wanted to show his readers the factual monotony behind the sulky blotch towns of industrial Britain.
As the essay title suggests, both Lodge and Dickens have portrayed their format of an industrial landscape. Both authors' coddle in a crestfallen environment of the industrial world: one at the height of a revolution, the other at the height of a decline. Dickens is keen to depict his Victorian contemporary world of Coketown in an essentially satirical context. It is emblemed with certain thematic issues including religion, the nature of employment and education, which follow course throughout the book. This surreal caricature of the Victorian landscape contrasts with Lodge's realistically styled piece. Lodge's passage, which holds a fictional veil over the names of "Rummidge and the Dark Country", is clearly intended to represent Birmingham and the Black Country.
In Hard Times it can be expected that Dickens wanted to emphasize Coketown as the "worst about Industrial Britain". What purpose would be privileged to do this? In many ways Dickens was viewed to denounce the Capitalist ethic. However never to found to be Communist/ Marxist it can be stated he was merely anti-materialistic. He felt the social injustice, which was created due to the heavy industry. Most of the mechanized account and in particular p.20 creates such an impression on the reader to think this. Dickens believed that this was a brutal world where everything is "measured by figures" in a Gradgrind gospel of "Fact". He has written a satire against the foundation and the constitutions of Industrial Society. A uniformly monotonous description is used, much like the movement of machine where "products are continuously churned out". The language used in this chapter holds no complexity. It translates simply to the author's purpose; generating a cold mocking account - "a satirical bite". This is the main thematic contrast of the two texts. We find Lodge is very unclear in who is denounced, what the author feels about society. It is very difficult to gauge what the author thinks about the deindustrialisation of Britain in the 1980's. Therefore we find the passage to be very much gentler in comparison, Lodge is not hostile to the West Midlands.
Lodge mainly writes with a dry informative tone throughout most of the narrative. At times his writing can be said to quite tedious. There obviously must be much more to this mundane tone than the writer's real style. It is possible to think of Lodge in a publisher's position when writing this: to sell the novel abroad. Therefore this maybe an excuse for such an informative description. Lodge feels the factual need to explain the history of the area in a fiction whereas Dickens found no cause to do this. As Lodge was a modern writer we could ...
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Lodge mainly writes with a dry informative tone throughout most of the narrative. At times his writing can be said to quite tedious. There obviously must be much more to this mundane tone than the writer's real style. It is possible to think of Lodge in a publisher's position when writing this: to sell the novel abroad. Therefore this maybe an excuse for such an informative description. Lodge feels the factual need to explain the history of the area in a fiction whereas Dickens found no cause to do this. As Lodge was a modern writer we could consider a different approach. Whilst Dickens writes as an anonymous narrator with clear intentions, Lodge's passage is only a reflection of Vic's language and thoughts. Lodge is playing clever games with the reader. He has used the tediously style to mirror the style of the "prize winning project" which Vic Wilcox wrote at school. As Vic recalls his project so too his ideas are projected in the writing. Further on in the Nice Work passage, we observe as Vic physically turn off the motorway so too Lodge tone turns off from uninterrupted information. At length we begin to observe genuinely descriptive detail. The language becomes vivid and poignant for the first time in the account. This will be considered more constructively further on.
It is clear that both texts are using a highly narrative style. However they differ in their approach used to attain their descriptive element. Much of the various language techniques employed have been utilised to accommodate for the writer's mode. Lodge uses an overtly educational style to mirror the views of his subject whilst Dickens leans for a very figurative and proimaginative method. In Hard Times there is an important high use of imagery and symbolism, it is therefore relatively easy to gauge Dickens's point of view and draw links to his purposes. Lodge writes with a much more complex manner. He is very much detached from the text; there is purposed absence of dramatic images and imagination, leaving the reader left to draw their own views of the subtle purposes of author. To add to this contrast, In Dickens uses an anonymous narrator throughout the passage whereas in Lodge it is a reflection of Vic's language and Vic's voice. The narrative here is not a mirror image of his thoughts though the narrator speaks for him: "Vic inclines for the first view but in certain moods will admit the force of the second." We can also observe that the narrator shows us the complete undisclosed truth in his premonitions of Vic's mind.
The style of reading texts, especially on a topic such as industry also entails the analysis of the subject/author's socio-economic viewpoint. Examining what stance and position, do they stand for, in the country's politics. The mass reading of a text by the public such as Hard Times could entail a successful jive at the targets of the text. This is precisely what Dickens planned to do. Dickens' episodes (rather than novels) were immensely popular in the Victorian era from all social divisions. He was able to dominate certain controversial issues using the gripping dramas from his books, clearly spelling out the society's injustice. Hard Times as mentioned previously challenges various parts of the Victorian society. However in the Key Note there seems to be a more focused attack on the aspects of the town and its ironical similarity of the routine its people undergo with the workings of a machine.
Lodge speaking in a different time period laments on behalf of Vic for the 1980's rapid deindustrialisation. Vic is a man of balanced and moderate opinion. He is a manger by instinct and by experience, as we are told he "supervised a shutdown himself in his time". He does not think so much about politics, but he does dislike the thought of a closed factory. Vic is willing to say that the reason for such an industrial decline was because of the "Tory Government, which allowed the pound to rise on the back of the North Sea Oil." The narrator candidly indicates that Vic is less inclined also to admit, "British industry was defenceless in the face of foreign competition".
It is certain that language techniques have been used intentionally in both passages. In Hard Times it has been used to clarify what Dickens is attacking whereas in Nice Work there seems to be no target as such and therefore the purpose of the language methodology seems to be more complex. I will consider techniques from larger features such as descriptive language: (Simile & Metaphor) to more refine enhances such as Structure and Length of sentences, which are used in both cases to resonate the author's purposes. An example of the imagery used would be the language concerning the description of the "interminable serpents of smoke" which "trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled". This is a highly developed image. The link of the serpent indicates to us the animalistic nature by which the smoke moves, it is physically dangerous and threatening and has biblical associations of evil. The phrase "interminable" depicts the endless life of the smoke and the symbol it defines in the continuous working of Coketown. "ever and ever, never..." is a direct then sub direct assonance. This rhythmically highlights and enforces the endless concept of the smoke - the materialistic cycle of the town will never end. The overall image has further connotations into the book. "ever and ever" a negative metaphor of serpents is also is used in many religious scriptures which is ironically focused on at the bottom of the passage "world without end, Amen". This final affirmation has a very dense irony. At the end of prayers it signifies a weighted agreement, however in this sense it is used oppositely: there is an uncomfortable darker tone that there is no end. Later on in the book the image of the serpent is returned to once more. He uses it to glance back at religion and the smoke "aspiring to heaven". The smoke seems to want to rise up but it is confused, suggesting the thoughts of the Coketown people - confused in a fog of missed opportunity. It is certain that there is a clear lack of imagery in Lodge's description, in comparison with the graphic text of Dickens. It is important to note that Lodge doesn't like to write factually. He wants to reflect Vic's outlook and in many ways to set up a picture that could be undermined by events later in the book. Lodge can be criticised for producing a passage of dense stale style. However Lodge has surprisingly included some images, which may seem out of context in the journalistic prose. The "serpents of smoke" can be related to "motorways which are looped and knotted" from Nice Work. Though Lodge's is generally quite weak, both produce the physical image of twisting and tangling.
Dickens also makes use of language technique with important variations of structure.
"It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and next."
Sentence length and repetition are predominantly used to highlight monotony and the horror, which is the environment of Coketown. In this quote there is the obvious use of the long sentence length and consistent use of repetition. Dickens conveys the monotony further by adding successive subordinate clauses with phrases to supplement them - he literally strings the sentence on and on. The rhythm of the sentence replicates the description of the "steam-engine" image of the elephant, trundling along. There is a progressive deepening and sadder, heavier concentration of repetition as the passage goes on. The repetition of "streets" twice and "same" attached to 3 different nouns. The monotony is increased as the passage goes on; there is no satisfying climax. He begins to focus on the notion of the monotony of time. The quote here is very similar in language to the free verse of poetry in terms of its rhythm. The repetition of the phrase "one another" emphasizing the person loses its subject value in the repetition and therefore like the people of Coketown, it loses its individuality. Finally Dickens brilliantly doesn't end of a note of culmination. The use of the word "next" reminds the reader of the interminability - a very subtle effect.
"A factory is sustained by the energy of its own functioning, the throb and wine of machinery, the clash of metal, the unceasing motion of the assembly lines, the ebb and flow of workers changing shifts, the hiss of the airbrakes and the growl of diesel engines from wagons delivering raw materials at one gate, taking away finished goods at the other."
Lodge's response to the structural techniques of language seems only to be this similarly extended length sentence. This sentence is the driving point of the Lodge description; it is the main passage of contrast in comparison to the other text. The prose becomes a little more exciting; it becomes emotive. There is an evident appreciation that Vic likes machinery. The language is conventional, it is plain in referring to the process of the factory: "the hiss of the air brakes" - however the rhythms and the appeal of sound "pulse and throb" show the vibrant life behind it. Finally there is a great sense of zest, which directly contrasts Dickens abhorrence. There is even evidence to show the audible animalistic image of the snake and dog in "hiss" and "growl", although there are no other connotations bar its sound. Thematically for the first time we can differentiate the subject's opinion of the factory system. Vic is naively attached to this sustainable factory process, he feels a sense of "coldness" and great loss when there is a "stop to all that", Dickens feels no loss: there is no end to the materialistic cycle of Coketown.
Conclusively it is clear that both authors have used a wide selection of differing techniques in larger aspects such as tone and style to finer enhances such as employment of language techniques. Each has been used specifically to echo the author's intention of creating an industrial atmosphere. Though both writers are aiming to illustrate the same topic of environment there are far more contrasts in both intention and the direction of the text. Dickens makes a clear satirical attack on the ethics of capitalism. In his account he makes evident use of many language techniques from imagery to sentence structure mainly illustrating the interminable monotony of the people and actions of Coketown. Lodge in comparison gives a much gentler account and seems to hold no target. In his account he mainly adopts an educational style prose to mirror the thoughts of his subject Vic Wilcox whilst also using a slightly more creative passage towards the end of the description to reveal political opinion and sentiment. Overall it is credible to say that the sources examined are quite detached in similarity. This maybe due to the large disparity of time between time periods. In view of success I think though Lodge's modern style of writing should be recognized as playing games with the reader, I judge that the tone is overtly mundane and dreary. It is impossible to give a comprehensive argument on Lodge's point of view due to his modern isolated style from the writing. Dickens is appealingly aggressive, motivating and quite favourably figurative. He leaves his readers without a shadow of a doubt of whom he is attacking.