A Tale Of Two Cities And The French Revolution

During the French Revolution the two social classes, nobles and the peasants, clashed with each other because the peasants felt treated unfairly by the nobles. Dickens tells a story of both sides of the Revolution and emphasizes the fact that both sides endured hardships. Charles Dickens in his novel A Tale of Two Cities gets readers to sympathize with both sides of the revolution through character foils, flashbacks, and the theme of suffering by portraying both sides as victims.

The literature that came out of the French Revolution often shares common themes of death, rebirth, and destruction. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is much the same way. Throughout the novel, Dickens clearly supports the revolution but also depicts the brutality of the revolutionaries. Dickens uses powerful metaphors of a sea to symbolize the revolutionaries destroying old France and the belittling name of “Jacques” to depict the narcissistic views of the French aristocracy to show his support for the revolution.

This relates to the theme of social class because it shows how the lower class used some slang, and Dickens portrays this by letting his characters use slang throughout the book.

The novel’s opening words (Book 1, Chapter 1) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . .” Provided, Dickens conveys the relationship between poverty and aristocracy through the use of parallelism, paradox, and other poetic techniques. In addition to, Dickens's technique functions not only to draw opposites, but to reveal hidden parallels.

A Tale of Two Cities, a book written by Charles Dickens in 1859, describes the situation of France and the French Revolution. At the end of Chapter Six, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Miss Pross are at a Tea Party. A turbulent storm occurs and incites an eerie mood within the characters. Charles Darnay starts telling a story about a paper he found. After telling the story, Dr. Manette begins to feel ill. Following this is a section which contains multiple literary elements. In Chapter Six, Dickens utilizes descriptive literary devices, such as imagery, personification, and anaphora, to foretell the French Revolution and set the mood of the passage.

It is quite evident that Dickens is using this quote as an exaggeration and mockery of the lives of the aristocrats, especially by saying that this man needs four men to prepare his hot chocolate for him, which is obviously not realistic. Next, we are introduced to Marquis Evrèmonde. The Marquis is not well liked throughout the entirety of France and is completely deserving of that. One night he was riding in his carriage, and he realized he had hit something; he had hit a child but of course that didn’t alarm him very much. The Marquis then states, “It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children.…. He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell” (84). It is evident that although the Marquis is aware of the destruction he has just caused, instead of taking responsibility or feeling any guilt, he blames the poor.

A Tale of Two Cities depicts what life was like before and during the French Revolution. Many heroes emerge as people continue to die from the guillotine. Charles Darnay, Dr. Manette, and Sydney Carton become heroes by saving each other and themselves. Charles Darnay lives in what seems as a life of luxury to the people around him. He is an Evremonde, and he is not proud to have the family name as they have a history of repressing the people.

This is a very important passage because it establishes the theme of duality from the get-go. It was the most luxurious time for the upper class, and the worst of times for everyone else. It was the age of wise philosophy and learning, it was also the age of\ foolish policies and unnecessary suffering. This theme is further expressed in the first chapter when Dickens talks about the religious and justice systems in each country. England is fascinated by supernatural ghosts and other religious phenomenon. In France people pay attention to religion out of fear rather than actual interest. The author also compares France's harsh justice system to England's lax one. Criminals overrun England; And when the courts do serve justice they do so indiscriminately,

Charles Dickens was the author of the A Tale of Two Cities. The novel is based on the French Revolution before, during, and after it occured. The French Revolution was a period where two opposing sides had political and social disagreements, leading to a war of bloodthirst. Each character is mirrored by a character with opposite traits. Using dramatic foils to create drama and suspense, he is able to illuminate different personalities through their opposition.

The French Revolution was a bloody time period fueled by social injustices and the Enlightenment; this bloodshed was seen as justified in the eyes of the peasants and lower classes, in an attempt to end absolutism, as portrayed in A Tale of Two Cities. World War 1 shed a fair amount of blood throughout its span as well too, with the murders viewed as acceptable due to the popular phrase “it is good and sweet to die for your country”, as seen in All Quiet on the Western Front. In both instances, patriotism and murder’s ends could not justify the means, and only led to further instability and insatiable vengeance within the respective countries of France and Germany, which only created an infernal atmosphere in these settings.

Tale of Two Cities Essay The French Revolution was a time of many deaths and many sacrifices. Dickens’ wrote A Tale of Two Cities around 100 years after the French Revolution. During the French Revolution, 40,000 were killed by the guillotine.

More specifically being that the lower class peasants were tired of being exploited by the corrupt aristocracy. Dickens effectively argues that there is fault in the disparity of the social structure in society among the time of the

People killing each other, people stealing, and people dying; during the French Revolution these were common themes. These violent attributes of the Revolution pushed the inherent goodness in people to a breaking point and at times resulted in their poor choices and uncharacteristic deeds. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows foils between the rich and the poor, explaining the lengths people will go to undermine the stress of the Revolution.

Was the French Revolution truly revolutionary? Dickens expressed in A Tale of Two Cities that it only changed who the oppressors were. I argue this is false as the Revolution set France on a path towards democracy, albeit a turbulent one. The Napoleonic Era also made strides towards this, thanks to Napoleon. Although he did use the people to fight in the Napoleonic Wars and increased tyrannical rule as his reign progressed, he made laws that brought France closer to democracy and balanced France’s budget. Through comparison of the two times, one can see the obvious injustice and oppression that complemented France before the

When one first thinks about the French Revolution, what comes to mind are often themes of violence, despair, and revenge. However, if one examines the motives behind the revolt, one discovers the underlying themes of sacrifice and love. In Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, the portrayal of the French Revolution includes more underlying themes than just violence and revenge. Different problems throughout the novel were fixed through someone’s selflessness. The use of sacrifice in various situations throughout the novel adds much more emotion and poignancy to the plot and adds to a more powerful and complex ending.