COKETOWN

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. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. 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.

Città del carbone

Era una città di mattoni rossi o di mattoni che dovevano essere tali se il fumo e la cenere lo avessero permesso ma in realtà era una città di un rosso e di un nero innaturale come il viso dipinto di un selvaggio. Era una città di macchinari e di alte ciminiere; dalle quali interminabili serpenti di fumo si susseguivano senza interruzione, non finivano mai di srotolarsi. C’era un canale nero, un fiume purpureo che scorreva con una tintura maleodorante e enormi pile di costruzioni piene di finestre dove c’era un tintinnio e un tremore tutto il giorno e dove il pistone della macchina a vapore lavorava monotonamente su e giù come la testa di un elefante in uno stato di malinconica pazzia. La città conteneva molte strade larghe tutte uguali l’una all’altra e piccole strade sempre uguali l’una all’altra, abitate da persone tutte uguali e simili l’una all’altra che uscivano e rientravano alla stessa ora con lo stesso suono, sugli stessi marciapiedi per fare lo stesso lavoro e per le quali tutti i giorni erano come ieri e domani ed ogni anno la copia dello scorso e del prossimo.

Coketown is the classic city that reflects the period of the Industrial Revolution: it’s an imaginery town but it’s possible to locate Preston-city, near Manchester.
In this passage we can distingiush the presence of many symbols that give us the idea of the existing problems inside this particular place.
The town is depicted by different colours: the brick of "innatural red and black", "black canal", "the river that ran purple "and it’s evident the atmosphere of pollution due to the tall chimneys and machinery that work continuously "for ever and ever".
The city appears monotonous not only in the colours but also in the sounds, in the noises, in the buildings ,in the streets.
What’s about its inhabitants? As in a painting, the inhabitants’ expression communicate only the monotony and sadness of life in this industrialized town.
People have lost their personality, their individuality: they are equally like one another and look like robots.

By the use of metephors, we can clearly deduce the presence of two types of risk that coexist and cause not only serious physical dangers (pollution) but even psychological problems.
The alienation due to the repetitive life in Coketown is a significative and worrying message of the existence of a psycological risk that workers may suffer.