As the first glimmers of a bright morning begin to appear on the urban horizon, sinister dark trails of smoke rise from the gray giants that will soon be filled with machinery. Leaving behind embalming layers of soot and residue in all directions, the endlessly coiling snakes indiscriminately constrict the breathing of poor workers and devour the imagination in their wake. Meanwhile, on a hill overlooking the town, the factory owner rests quietly in a bulky red house bearing BOUNDERBY on a brass plaque. Dickens's depictions of Coketown in Hard Times embody the flaws and corruption that persist in the fictional, industrialized town. The story's political and economic systems, modeled after those of mid-19th century England, call for conformity and monotony while devaluing the imagination and individuality of its citizens, all for selfish gains of a small number of upper-class individuals. The endless streams of smoke emerging from factory chimneys repeatedly evoke the dangers of increasingly widespread industrialism as well as the pomposity and immorality of Bounderby. Although pollution continually covers Coketown in a deadly haze, Mr. Bounderby ignorantly worships the smog as a symbol of his prosperity. wealth. Just as the town "was shrouded in a mist of its own", Bounderby's views on the workings of the factory are distorted by personal interests; the smoke indicates that factories are operating and producing materials to be sold and traded for profit (82). As long as he makes money, his selfishness obscures the exceptional truth about the atrocity of unjust working conditions, just as smoke “seemed impervious to the sun's rays” (82). The utter contradiction of his pretentious and benevolent man, after his return from Old Hell Shaft, serves to expose the serious flaws of industrialism embodied by the omnipresent snakes. of smoke hovering above the factories. Often associated with evil and corruption, the snake-like smoke that engulfs Coketown represents not only the literal dangers of development, but also the figurative obfuscation of the moral judgments and responsibilities of factory owners, like Bounderby. Such vivid and realistic images of pollution in Coketown highlight the objective and subjective degradation caused by the revolution and the resulting ramifications not only on the physical landscape but also on the minds of the citizens. As snakes choke the principles of the rich and the vitality of the poor, Dickens exposes the true price paid for industrial progress..