Tim Goodwin London Fog Analysis

London, the “first great city in history to be fuelled by coal,” has a portion of its history blurred by the pressing issue of fog. Caused by the burning of coal and a growing population, the fog led to disease and death for many people. The complications that this fog brought to the daily lives of the English people have provided a unique situation on which authors have built numerous literary works. Two authors who used this element in their writing are Tim Goodwin and Charles Dickens, whose separate purposes and styles have resulted in vastly different passages. Tim Goodwin’s passage about London fog is written in an educational manner. This is evident due to Goodwin’s writing style, which involves scientific elements such as the amount of fog per year in tons per square mile. Because he presents the facts about a true situation, not a fictional scenario, he writes literally, omitting figurative language which would add color to his work. A rhetorical strategy that he employs is cause and effect: he displays the consequences of London’s use of coal, an immense death toll, and he demonstrates the beneficial results of the Clean Air of 1956, the end of the fog. Finally, he organizes his work in chronological order to provide the reader with a clear

Because this passage’s purpose is to provide a setting for the story that is about to take place, it is written with a very descriptive style. In order to illustrate its extensive effects on the people, Dickens personifies the fog by using colorful verbs such as creeping, hovering, drooping, wheezing, and pinching; he reinforces this technique by using imagery: he describes the people on the fog-smothered bridges as appearing to be in a balloon in the clouds. Lastly, to organize his work, Dickens begins by describing the entire situation, and then narrowing his viewpoint until he is describing the fog’s effect on individual