London Of Darkness

The representation of the London of ‘light’ and the London of ‘darkness’ has evolved throughout the history of literature; this change can be explored and observed when comparing the topics of the country and the city within popular literary works of art. Within Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist the countryside is viewed as the London of ‘light’ while the city is viewed as the London of ‘darkness’. These themes are brought out by the realism Dickens uses in relation to the period in which his novel was written, between 1837-39. On the contrary, Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Sign of Four represents the London of ‘light’ through the city of London while the London of ‘darkness’ is signified by the countryside. These ideas will be shown by close …show more content…
The atmosphere is proven to be dirty and suffocating by Dickens use of the verbs ‘muddy’ and ‘narrow’. Additionally, the verb ‘impregnated’, meaning soaked and/or saturated, allows the audience the imagine the ‘filthy odors’ being so prevalent an individual is unable to breathe. Williams states that within a London of ‘darkness’ an individual “must escape, or try to escape, from … […the…] … repulsive and degrading mass” (Williams 222). Audience can detect that Oliver longs to get away from the city as soon as he enters when he is ‘considering whether he hadn’t better run away’. The hell aspect of the darkness can be symbolized by having Oliver end up at the bottom of a hill, signifying that he is a long way down, much like people refer to hell as being below earth and heaven in the clouds. Finally, Williams declares that the city “in many minds … […was…] … so over-whelming, that its people were often seen in a single way” losing their individuality and humanity (Williams 222). The loss of humanity and grouping of individual’s can be depicted within the children described in the extract. All the children are represented in the same animalistic format, ‘crawling’ about the streets like rats and ‘screaming’ from inside their locked cages longing to escape. This graphic scene also takes place at night, a time associated with crime and literal darkness. During the period of Oliver Twist, the countryside was an escape from the city, for that reason the London of ‘light’ is exhibited as a heaven like place in Dickens’ novel. These ideas are brought to the attention of the readers in the extract when Oliver describes the educational opportunities offered to him and how even the poor are better off in the