Environs in Novels

Dickens in Hard Times offers a social message which he brings to life through character and setting. Coketown in Hard Times is a representation of the sort of world that was being created because the Industrial Revolution centered entirely on promoting the economy through increased profits while ignoring the human element that makes the whole thing operate. Coketown is an example of what results when society ignores the consequences of change--it is a dark and dirty place where ignorance prevails and any human happiness is stamped out by the sheer sameness of the surroundings. The characters are affected by living in this milieu:

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage (Dickens 30).

It should be apparent that Coketown is being depicted here as an example of something from a less civilized age, though something that still exists. The streets are all the same; the people ar

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ven go so far as to believe it was my country too. But I'd be damned if I was going to be afraid to make this woman because she was white Texas (Himes 123). Public space surrounds and shapes characters in the very different milieu of Russia in Petersburg by Andrei Bely as well. Bely always has a strong sense of place, evoking images of the geometry of the city in a way reminiscent of Dos Passos and New York, and Petersburg is a character in this novel as New York is in Dos Passos, Doctorow, and Himes. Petersburg at the time of this novel is similar to New York at the time of Ragtime, and it is also beset by dissension and anarchism in some sense created by the geometrical streets and blocks of housing in which the characters live when they are not interacting in the public square. Public spaces in all these novels become places where character is revealed through interaction with others, bringing out aspirations, ideas, economic circumstances, and comparisons between people.  Works Cited Bely, Andrei. Petersburg. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1978. Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. New York: Signet, 1961. Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime. New York: Plume, 1975. Dos Passos, John. Manhattan Transfer. Boston: Hought
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Underground Underground, Nights Paris, Zola's L'Assommoir, Industrial Revolution, Dos Passos, Notes Underground, Greenwich Village, Manhattan Transfer, Coalhouse Walker, Kong Himes, dos passos, manhattan transfer, public space, nights paris, public spaces, notes underground, hard times, theory human nature, dream hold, rational underground, city manhattan, city manhattan transfer,
Approximate Word count = 3260
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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