The Procession

The Procession by John Galsworthy

The novel revolves around the lives of two aristocratic families, the Forsytes and the Soameses, who are connected through marriage. The story explores their social status, relationships, and personal struggles in late Victorian England. The narrative focuses on the complexities of family dynamics, particularly the tension between tradition and modernity. The characters' interactions reveal the societal pressures and expectations that shape their lives. Throughout the novel, themes of class, morality, and identity are examined through the characters' experiences. Their relationships with one another serve as a microcosm for the broader social issues of the time. The novel's structure is episodic, with each section presenting a self-contained story while contributing to the overall narrative arc. This format allows for a nuanced exploration of the characters' lives and the societal context in which they exist. Ultimately, the novel offers a commentary on the social conventions and values of late Victorian England, highlighting both the privileges and constraints of aristocratic life.

By John Galsworthy · First published 1906 · Genre: Social Realism, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction · 1,698 words

First lines

In one of those corners of our land canopied by the fumes of blind industry, there was, on that day, a lull in darkness. A fresh wind had split the customary heaven, or roof of hell; was sweeping long drifts of creamy clouds across a blue still pallid with reek. The sun even shone -- a sun whose face seemed white and wondering. And under that rare sun all the little town, among its slag heaps and few tall chimneys, had an air of living faster. In those continuous courts and alleys, where the women worked, smoke from each little forge rose and dispersed into the wind with strange alacrity; amongst the women, too, there was that same eagerness, for the sunshine had crept in and was making pale all those dark-raftered, sooted ceilings which covered them in, together with their immortal comrades, the small open furnaces. About their work they had been busy since seven o'clock; their feet pressing the leather lungs which fanned the conical heaps of glowing fuel, their hands poking into the glow a thin iron rod till the end could be curved into a fiery hook; snapping it with a mallet; threading it with tongs on to the chain; hammering, closing the link; and; without a second's pause, thrusting the iron rod again into the glow. And while they worked they chattered, laughed sometimes, now and then sighed. They seemed of all ages and all types; from her who looked like a peasant of Provence, broad, brown, and strong, to the weariest white consumptive wisp; from old women of seventy, with straggling grey hair, to fifteen-year-old girls. In the cottage forges there would be but one worker, or two at most; in the shop forges four, or even five, little glowing heaps; four or five of the grimy, pale lung-bellows; and never a moment without a fiery hook about to take its place on the growing chains, never a second when the thin smoke of the forges, and of those lives consuming slowly in front of them, did not escape from out of the dingy, whitewashed spaces past the dark rafters, away to freedom.

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The Procession is listed on Textopian as an essay by John Galsworthy, dated 1906 CE.

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Social Commentary · Realism · Class Struggle · English Literature · Victorian Era · Family Dynamics · Marriage · Love · Society Hierarchy · Morality · Ethics · Philosophy

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