First Year Writing Award
Hard Times and Industrial Pollution
By: Sarah Parker
The 19th century was the dawning of a new era for technology, giving rise to the industrial revolution. New machinery allowed coal to be extracted at much lower rates and with much more yield than ever before (Clark & Jacks 40-43). Areas designated for coal production were created, and due to the fuel that coal provided, factories began to consolidate around these already industrialized locations. Evidence of these changes can be seen in Charles Dickens’s most industrial novel, Hard Times. The novel is set in the mining community of Coketown, named after the coke (coal) that emerged from these largely industrialized areas. Hard Times depicts the ghastly demographics of these areas and the effects they have on the town itself and its inhabitants. They are exposed to the dangers and possible hazards from the pollution generated in these cities. Hard Times is Dickens’s scathing critique of industrial pollution.
The level of pollution is directly correlated with the increased prevalence of these industrial areas and factories. There were few to no laws or limitations set in place during the 19th century to reduce the amount of pollution created or the affects it had on the residents in close proximity to these areas. The soot and ash were allowed to accumulate and not only create a harmful living environment, but also change the appearance of the town as well. Coketown is described as “. . . a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it . . .” (Dickens 20). Coketown was made up of identical duplicate buildings that had no distinguishing features and as it says in the novel, the jail and infirmary would be homogenous with each other in appearance (21).
The working class living areas were in a close vicinity to the factories in which these people worked, an area much more dangerous than the outskirts of the town. Dickens explains that this part of town is “where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gasses were bricked in” (57). This is his way of conveying his discontent with industrial revolution and the plight it created for many people. Not only was air ventilation an issue, access to clean water and water drainage had become compromised as well. The river than coursed through Coketown “ran purple with ill-smelling dye” (20). This is the run off from the textile mills. The town was not a peaceful place to live given the sounds of the factory engines and the mining machines and the vibrations created by them. Dickens depicts these scenes, with the “clattering of clogs upon the pavement, a rapid ringing of bells” (56), and “rattling and trembling all day long” (20). Health risks and poor working and living conditions were made worse by the deplorable earning wage they received for carrying out this kind of work.
There were many health risks to living in these areas. Industrial cities were known to hold large populations of people looking for work or people unable to afford nicer areas. Hanlon, in his research article, imparts the effects of high populations and spread of diseases and how that influences mortality rates, factory orientated areas being particularly at high risk (1-3). Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, thymus and scarlet fever, to name a few, were main contributors to the mortality rates during this time period. With the overly crowded areas and little access to proper health care, these diseases spread rapidly and with ease. Not only was the population a contribution to the high mortality rates, the pollution was known to be linked to and cause respiratory diseases and ended up outweighing all infectious diseases together in death poles (Hanlon 7). Hanlon explains how mining and textile factories are not the front runners for using the most coal for production. What can be seen in Table 1 is that both of these had the highest employment rates. Therefore, this would require them to need more factories in total to employ and house these workers, which would result in the use of more coal to power them all (11-12). Working Conditions in Factories (Issue) shows there were many accidents that occurred in the factories as well, including loss of limbs or digits and possible death. Working long shifts was common in factories and only added to the number of accidents from exhaustion.
Hard Times uses a plethora of symbolism to describe and give greater detail to the surroundings landscape. In the novel we see the smoke as being referred to as serpents that are repeatedly described as large, continuous, and unending in production. The smoke being expressed as serpents would be associated with the strangulation and suffocation that snakes are so well known for. The machines within the factories are called “melancholy-mad elephants” (Dickens 56). The machines are used constantly and their movements are monotonous. Bornstein comments that the use of these two animals and the way they are depicted are for the purpose of portraying Coketown as a hostile, dangerous and violent place (161). The mills are referred to as “fairy palaces” to emphasize how bad the industrial area is in comparison. The symbolic terms are used to give a deeper meaning for what the pollution was like on the area and the people.
A major event in the novel relating to the ramifications of the industrial era is the untimely and gruesome death of Stephen Blackpool, a factory worker in one of the mills in Coketown. Stephen falls into a mine shaft fatefully named the “Old Hell Shaft.” Not only was Stephen a factory worker and his existence and worth were diminished to “Hands,” but his life was also snuffed out by the industry itself. Dickens describes Stephen as looking older than he actually was. He is often called Old Stephen in homage to the fact that his strenuous work has aged him beyond his years. He put his best into his work as a power loom weaver and suffered the residual consequences from spending so much time on these large machines (52). Stephen’s dying wish is to not have others suffer from the dangers and death from which he has succumbed to (203). The whole reason that Stephen ended up in this predicament is because he was accused of robbing a bank owned by the mill owner, Josiah Bounderby, Bounderby, as the factory owner, was a negligent boss and manager. He implemented appalling working conditions, putting his employees in danger, and neglecting to acquaint himself with his workers. Stephen claims that if Bounderby had tried to get to know him, even a little bit, he would not have surmised that Stephen was guilty. Not only is there a disregard for the environmental impacts on the factory; there is an ignorance to the lives of others than his own. To confirm how horrific industrial pollution and factory labor is on the landscape and a person, Dickens contrives a death for Stephen in this abandoned mine shaft.
Europe was the front runner of the industrial revolution and pioneered their way into this new life style. Many consider Britain the birthplace of industry. The improvements that technology saw was astounding, and allowed for much more production in a smaller time frame. This made life easier for the people who were not in the working class at the expense of the working class. Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times is his most notorious industrial novel which largely focuses on the pollution that was generated in these areas. But he does write about industrial areas in some of his other novels. The industrial area in Oliver Twist is described as “A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen” (55). The pollution that ravaged the earth in the 19th century made life averse to those to endure. Dickens’s novels impart the dangers and severity that pollution imposes on and ecological level.
Work Cited
Bornstein, George. Miscultivated Field and Corrupted Garden: Imagery in Hard Times. Nineteeth-Century Fiction 26.2. 1971. 2016.
Clark, Gregory, and David Jacks. “Coal and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1869”. European Review of Economic History 11.1 (2007): 39–72. Web... n.d.
Dickens, Charles, Fred Kaplan, and Sylvère Monod. Hard Times; an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Sources, and Contemporary Reactions, Criticism. New York: W.W Norton, 1966. Print.
Dickens, C., & Cruikshank, G, . Oliver Twist. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1961. Print
Dickens, Charles, Fred Kaplan, and Sylvère Monod. Hard Times; an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Sources, and Contemporary Reactions, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1966. Print.
Hanlon, W. Walker. "Pollution and Mortality in the 19th Century." NATIONAL BUREAU
OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2015). NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
History.com Staff. "Industrial Revolution." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"Industrial History | Europe." Europe. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Ketabgian, T. S..""Melancholy Mad Elephants": Affect and the Animal Machine in Hard Times." Victorian Studies 45.4 (2003): 649-676. Project MUSE. Web. 25 Apr. 2016. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.
"Working Conditions in Factories (Issue)." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000.Encyclopedia.com. 30 Apr. 2016 <http://www.encyclopedia.com.
Sarah Parker ’19 is a Psychology Major and was nominated by Dr. Jude Nixon.