Gorky describes the factory as a "tall stone cage" and the workers as "frightened roaches." What specific impact do these metaphors have on the reader's immediate perception of the workers' lives and their relationship with their environment, and how do they establish the novel's central conflict?

From the book

street. With somber faces they hastened forward like frightened roaches, their muscles stiff from insufficient sleep. In the chill morning twilight they walked through the narrow, unpaved street to the tall stone cage that waited for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud plashed under their feet as if in mocking commiseration. Hoarse exclamations of sleepy voices were heard; irritated, peevish, abusive language rent the air with malice; and, to welcome the people, deafening sounds floated about--the heavy whir…

s stiff with insufficient sleep" _Frontispiece_ "The mother ... strained her untrained mind to listen" 34 "It seemed to Vlasova that the officer was but waiting for her tears" 92 "Taking out one package of books after the other, she shoved them into the hands of the brothers" 116 "The mother's heart quivered with impatience" 142 "'Listen, for the sake of Christ'" 232 …

to be able to eat they drank, long and deep, goading on their feeble stomachs with the biting, burning lash of vodka. In the evening they amused themselves idly on the street; and those who had overshoes put them on, even if it was dry, and those who had umbrellas carried them, even if the sun was shining. Not everybody has overshoes and an umbrella, but everybody desires in some way, however small, to appear more important than his neighbor. Meeting one another they spoke about the factory and the machines, had their fling against their foreman, conversed and thought only of…

eeth. But now there was animation in their voices, and even gladness. The servitude of hard toil was over for the day. Supper awaited them at home, and respite. The day was swallowed up by the factory; the machine sucked out of men's muscles as much vigor as it needed. The day was blotted out from life, not a trace of it left. Man made another imperceptible step toward his grave; but he saw close before him the delights of rest, the joys of the odorous tavern, and he was satisfied. On holidays the workers slept until about ten o'clock. Then the staid and married people dressed…

?" And he walked away quietly, as was his wont. She got herself ready to go to him on the fourth day after his visit. When the cart with her two trunks rolled out of the village into the open country, she turned her head back, and suddenly had the feeling that she was leaving the place forever--the place where she had passed the darkest and most burdensome period of her life, the place where that other varied life had begun, in which the next day swallowed up the day before, and each was filled by an abundance of new sorrows and new joys, new thoughts and new feelings. The factory…