Colle anglais Arnold Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns (1902), chapter 1.

« Colle anglais Arnold Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns (1902), chapter 1. Specificity of the text:   Paradox of industrialization between the deformation of the landscape and the grandeur of human progress? An intertextual reference to Plato’s allegory of the cave. A master of social realism, Charles Dickens often denounced the ravages of industrialization on cities and their inhabitants in his novels, as in Hard Times, where the city of Coketown embodies the dehumanization caused by industrial progress.

Similarly, the excerpt from Chapter 1 of Anna of the Five Towns, written by Arnold Bennett in 1902, also describes an industrial city: Bursley. However, rather than adopting a simple critical tone, the text offers a more nuanced reflection, oscillating between denunciation and fascination for this world shaped by man. I will now read a portion of the excerpt before beginning my analysis. We will now seek to answer the question: How does the omniscient point of view of the narrator guide the reader's perception and highlight the dual nature of the industrial city? We will first analyze the critique of the landscape’s deformation by industry, then explore how the narrator acknowledges a certain grandeur in industrial work. Finally, we will examine how the narrator, like a philosopher, provides a distanced and enlightened reflection on the description of the industrial city. I.

A Critical View of the Landscape Deformation by Industry A Nostalgia for an Ideal Past Contrasted with a Polluted Present At the beginning of the excerpt, the narrator adopts a critical view of the landscape's deformation by industry.

Indeed, the reader perceives a certain nostalgia for an idyllic past that contrasts with a polluted present.

From the outset, the two characters seem to have "got past the bandstand," as if, by symbolically passing the bandstand, they are leaving behind a creative and harmonious world.

This passage thus suggests a transition from a past filled with harmony to a darker reality. We also feel a sense of nostalgia through the protective figure of the "gold angel of the Town Hall spire," which seems to watch over the city and its potters for many years.

This image ties the city to a past where religion held an important and comforting place.

Additionally, the repeated use of terms linked to the past to describe the city reinforces the pride of the potters, amplified by the hyperbole "a thousand years," which emphasizes the age and prestige of their heritage. Nostalgia is also evident in the use of the past tense with "must have been one of the fairest spots in Alfred’s England." The superlative "fairest spots" evokes an idealized vision of the past, which could be compared to the Garden of Eden, symbolizing the lost paradise and a time regretted. Finally, the historical reference to Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, known for uniting England and resisting Viking invasions, suggests the victory of Christianity over Viking paganism.

This historical choice thus reinforces the opposition between a prestigious past and a degraded present, highlighting the loss of a golden age in the face of industrialization. B.

A Pessimistic Description: An Oppressive and Dehumanizing Environment However, this glorious evocation is brutally interrupted by the conjunction "but," marking a clear rupture: "but which is now defaced by the activities of a quarter of a million people." The contrast is striking: after a lyrical evocation of past beauty, the text shifts to a sordid reality where industry and overpopulation have disfigured ("defaced") this once harmonious place.

The term "defaced," meaning both to alter and to mutilate a face, gives a nearly bodily dimension to this destruction, as if the city itself has lost its identity. The image of the "maze of roofs" reinforces the impression of a chaotic and oppressive landscape.

This expression even evokes the myth of Daedalus' labyrinth and, by extension, the monster it houses.

Thus, the industrial city becomes an inextricable and monstrous space where the inhabitants seem trapped in a frantic routine. This idea of an incessant rhythm from which no inhabitant can escape is expressed through the hyperbole "a quarter of a million of people," suggesting a bustling crowd, almost comparable to an invasion of insects (worker ants). There is no room for individuality: the inhabitants are reduced to two hundred and fifty thousand tiny cogs in the great industrial machine.

Thus, after the grandeur of the past, Bursley appears as a denatured place, crushed by frantic human activity. Then, the omniscient narrator describes a hostile and oppressive city.

Indeed, when he evokes the four cities, he explains that they are connected by a "winding thoroughfare." This road seems to reference the serpent in the Bible, symbolizing temptation and the fall, which led to the expulsion of humanity from the Garden of Eden. The narrator then emphasizes the austerity of the urban landscape, accentuating its lack of charm and inhospitableness through the accumulation of pejorative descriptive terms: "mean and forbidding of aspect, sombre, hardfeatured, uncouth." The adjective "hard-featured" personifies the city, giving it a rigid and cold physiognomy, almost inhuman. Moreover, the accumulation of adjectives describing the streets ("prosaic, piled-up, red-brown") reinforces the uniformity of the urban space: the houses, tightly packed together, all look alike, crushing any uniqueness.

The repetition of "more prosaic, more remote from romance" highlights just how far this city is from the rural charms, which are usually a source of inspiration for romance and poetry. C.

A Deformed Nature Finally, the narrator shows how the city's industrialization attacks nature and deprives it of its vitality.

Indeed, this opposition between nature and industry is highlighted by the metaphor of the battle: "the unending warfare of man and nature" (l.21).

It underscores how industrial pollution disfigures the countryside: "the vaporous poison of their ovens and chimneys has soiled and shriveled the surrounding country" (l.10). The expression "vaporous poison" creates a striking image of suffocating toxic fumes, similar to London's smog.

The term "poison" evokes something evil, as if a curse has been cast on the city by a malevolent entity, or as if the inhabitants are being punished.

In this regard, we can draw a parallel with the plagues of Egypt in the Old Testament, where water turns to blood.

Here, it is the pure air that is transformed into suffocating smoke. Moreover, nature is personified in the excerpt when the narrator writes that it "is wounded and mistreated," and that it undergoes "the tearing of the entrails of the earth." This personification evokes the reader's pity, who is outraged by the cruelty of men and industrialization.

The verbs "soiled" and "shrivelled" accentuate the physical degradation of nature, as if it is incapable of surviving the assaults of.... »