Hard Times

A fictitious industrialized city in northern England, Coketown’s physical appearance is defined by the factories that, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, changed it forever. Their chimney stacks now dominate the skyline. Even the city’s name derives from coke, a hard, grey fossil fuel burned in the factories. Bustling people and traffic fill the streets, and the buildings have a uniform, undistinguished style, all built from the same plentiful materials. Coketown—particularly the factories that dictate its aesthetic qualities—symbolizes the changing society. The city has undergone rapid change and is now inseparable from the heavy industry in its factories. The factories not only represent these changes but have in essence become the city, powering its industry and its people in equal measure.

The factories don’t necessarily symbolize positive social change, however. Despite all the goods they produce, the industry they enable, and the jobs they provide, they negatively affect life. The factories support the Industrial Revolution, which spurred rapid migration from rural to urban areas. Forced into the city, people live in the shadows of the factories where they work, which constantly remind them of their impoverished living conditions. The huge factories leave little space for housing, so workers must live in cramped slums.