Lyddie is set in the middle of the nineteenth century in both a one-room cabin in the country (Vermont) and a textile factory in the city (Lowell, Massachusetts). The setting, then, is designed to compare and contrast rural life and industrial life during the industrial revolution. The rural aspect of the setting reveals the depression surrounding complete isolation. Lyddie, of course, longs to escape. Ironically, both country life and city life end up being a prison for Lyddie. For example, when she gets to Lowell and begins working in the textile factory, Lyddie realizes how horribly the workers are treated. Breathing in the textile fibers and listening to the thunderous roar of the machines ruin their health, not to mention the horrors of greed and lust coming from the bosses. Social reform, then, is long in coming when workers are repressed in this way.
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