Individualism in Dicken's Hard Times

Working under the assumption that only higher production rates would increase the wealth of the country, Coketown exists solely for its industrial output and provides no comfort for its working class citizens. The system believes that this efficiency is the one importance in life, so everything inside the walls of the city relates directly to maximizing this output -- it is extremely practical; no precious resources are wasted on the aesthetics of the city; “you saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful” (31). It was an infectious disease (“As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the neighborhood’s too – after the manner of

With this symbolic painting, the individualistic features of a man become hidden; he no longer displays his own traits, but wears a mask identical to that of thousand others of his tribe. Likewise, the workers of Coketown succumbed to the ever increasing level of uniformity:

Associating Coketown with “the painted face of a savage” implies that the growing urbanization is in reality the opposite of what it claims to be; rather than modern and civilized, it is harsh and barbaric.

It was a town of red brick, or brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as the matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye. (30)

Some topics in this essay:
Associating Coketown, Gradgrind Bounderby, Hard Times, Pegasus’s Arms, Blitzer Dickens, Sissy Jupe, industrial age, , blitzer perfect, gradgrind bounderby, red brick, public inscriptions, industrial town,