in a london drawing room - george elliot🐢

“The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke”

Polluted, industrial atmosphere; unnatural and suffocating.

“For view there are the houses opposite”

Limited view symbolises confinement and lack of freedom.

“Cutting the sky with one long line of wall”

Suggests separation from nature; claustrophobic imagery of urban life.

“Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch”

Simile shows dull uniformity; lifeless, monotonous environment.

“Monotony of surface & of form”

Reflects repetitive, soulless industrial city; lack of individuality.

“No bird can make a shadow as it flies”

Nature stifled by pollution; life cannot thrive under human destruction.

“For all is changed, as in a moving show”

Artificiality; the city is mechanical and constantly shifting yet empty.

“By thickest canvass, where the golden rays / Are clothed in hemp”

Light (hope) blocked; nature subdued by industrial progress.

“To feed the hunger of the eye / Or rest a little on the lap of life”

People are deprived of beauty and rest; no appreciation of life.

“All closed, in multiplied identity”

Dehumanisation; people identical, trapped in repetitive, industrial routines.

“The world seems one huge prison-house”

Metaphor for oppression; humanity trapped by its own systems.

“Where men are punished as the just reward / For pleasure’s lawless thrift”

Irony; society punishes itself for greed and exploitation.

Structure

Single 19-line stanza reflects monotony and endlessness of city life.

Monotony of surface

Mirrors uniform, lifeless urban landscape.

Mirrors how people ‘hurry’

Continuous structure echoes constant motion without purpose.

Theme

Industrialisation, loss of nature, dehumanisation, punishment for human greed.