Troubling times
Due to burglaries increasing in frequency and bondless, people start installing various alarm systems with “magnetic contacts, infra-red scanners, pressure pads and panic buttons”. It is mentioned that “it takes about five minutes to set it up” and every time one comes back downstairs for something one has to “cancel it and start over again”. This image is supposed to give an impression of people’s fear for robbery. The image also shows how an economical crisis and high unemployment affect those people, who manage to keep their working places and salaries. People expect that someone may come in order to take their property or even lives away.
An industrial part
Although Rummidge is an imaginary city, it is a perfect example of how industrial cities once looked. The place used to be called a Dark Country, because “a dense cloud of pestilential smoke hangs over it forever”. The sky is so dark that one can hardly name a difference between a day and a night. However, if it looks horribly in daylight, it starts looking even more frightful during nighttime, “for the whole region becomes like a volcano spitting fire from a thousand tubes of brick”. This image is supposed to give an impression of a living hell, a place where no one would live because of his or her free will.
The prodigal son
Vic is the type of a person who can’t forget about his responsibilities even for a minute, and he expects his children to be just like him. But his eldest son, Raymond, has a different opinion. He “drops out of university” and spends his days playing guitar and walking around with his “cronies”. When Vic starts his working day, Raymond lies in a bed “swaddled in a duvet, naked except for a single golden earring, sleeping off last night’s booze”. The image gives an impression that the father and his eldest son are completely different people, who have nothing in common, except for a surname.
